A cargo vessel carrying sulphur appears to have drifted and run aground in the sea near Antarvedi in Konaseema district amid Cyclone Arnab. The vessel had left Visakhapatnam but drifted off course after its engine reportedly failed, port officials told ANI.

The Konaseema district administration had earlier been told of a cargo ship stranded near Gadimoga. A Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier, the Sigma Pearl, left Visakhapatnam port shortly after midnight on October 27 and sent its last position signal at 9.47 a.m. on Tuesday, according to the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.

Cyclone Arnab has hardly moved since it hit the coast. In the six hours to 11.30 a.m. on Wednesday (October 28, 2026), it travelled only about 30 km, the IMD said. It was then about 20 km north of Narsapur, 44 km from Yanam and 60 km from Kakinada.

The storm is losing strength over land. The IMD expects it to weaken further by early evening and to become much weaker by around midnight. It will drift slowly north-west over the next two days.

Odisha has moved more than 30,000 people out of low-lying and landslide-prone areas, Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari said on Wednesday. Malkangiri is likely to be the worst hit among the southern districts. Mahendragarh in Gajapati district recorded the most rain in the State in the past 24 hours, at nearly 250 mm. Pottangi in Koraput got 188 mm.

No major damage or deaths have been reported so far, Special Relief Commissioner Rajesh P. Patil told PTI. All 19,143 fishing boats are back on shore. Flights from Chennai and Hyderabad to Bhubaneswar are taking a longer route over Raipur to avoid the airspace near Visakhapatnam.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking a Central team to assess the damage caused by Cyclone Arnab once the State submits its detailed report. In the letter on Wednesday, he also sought continued support from the NDRF and other Central agencies over the coming days.

The State’s first estimate, given in the letter, shows paddy on about 70,900 hectares and horticulture crops on another 10,450 hectares under water or damaged. About 180 houses have been damaged, most of them in Konaseema district. Four wards of Visakhapatnam were flooded. Of the more than 220 trees that fell on State roads, over 170 have been cleared, he said. 

Waves surged onto the Visakhapatnam coast on Wednesday, hours after Cyclone Arnab crossed the coast near Narsapur. The IMD had warned of a storm surge of 1 to 1.5 metres in low-lying areas near the landfall zone. It expects the sea to calm down gradually now that the storm is over land.

Chokka Kishore Kumar, 46, died after a tree fell on him in Bhimavaram in West Godavari district at about 12.30 a.m. on Wednesday, an official said. He was declared dead on arrival at the hospital. Later in the morning, Rambabu, a newspaper delivery man, suffered a critical head injury when an electric pole fell on his moped near a temple in the town. He is in the ICU.

- PTI

The Jharkhand government has ordered the closure of schools till October 29 in several districts in the wake of rainfall triggered by cyclone ‘Arnab’, which made landfall in the Andhra Pradesh coast in the early hours of Wednesday, officials said.

Ranchi, West Singhbhum, East Singhbhum and Simdega district administrations said schools will remain closed on Wednesday and Thursday.

“In all government, government-aided and private schools operating within Ranchi district, academic activities for Classes KG to 12 shall remain suspended on October 28-29,” an official statement said.

- PTI

Some parts of Telangana began to witness the impact of cyclonic storm Arnab as they received rains on Wednesday (October 28, 2026) morning. While rainfall over 10 mm was recorded in four districts, it was between 2 mm and 10 mm in four more. The very severe cyclonic storm crossed Andhra Pradesh and the Yanam coasts in the morning before weakening into a severe cyclonic storm.

India Meteorological Department-Hyderabad Centre, which issued a special weather bulletin in the afternoon, placed Khammam, Bhadradri Kothagudem, Nalgonda and Suryapet under orange alert indicating likelihood of receiving heavy to very heavy rainfall on Wednesday (October 28, 2026).

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A bulk carrier, the Marshall Islands-flagged Sigma Pearl, has been stranded near the Ravva oil field off the Konaseema-Kakinada coast. The ship had left Visakhapatnam port shortly after midnight on October 27. Engine failure is believed to have caused it to drift.

The ship last sent out its position at 9.47 a.m. on Tuesday, according to MarineTraffic, a website that tracks ships through their automatic signals. It was then moving under its own engine at 5.5 knots. The website now shows the vessel as out of range.The Konaseema district information office told The Hindu on Wednesday that Collector R. Mahesh Kumar had received word of a cargo ship stranded near Gadimoga on Tuesday. Officials are yet to find out how many crew members are on board or what state the vessel is in.

A 55-year-old woman died after she stepped on an exposed live wire outside her home in Yellamanchili town of Anakapalli district on Wednesday morning, the police said. In Visakhapatnam district, a 53-year-old man died on Tuesday night after he came into contact with a live wire that had snapped over a field channel, a senior district official said.

- PTI

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has asked people in cyclone-hit areas to stay alert, follow official advisories and avoid unnecessary travel until the impact of Cyclone Arnab subsides. Ministers are on the ground supervising relief work, he said in a post on X on Wednesday.

Mr. Naidu said no loss of life had been reported so far.

Trees fell at 10 locations on the railway network after Cyclone Arnab’s landfall, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a post on X on Wednesday. All were cleared promptly. He reviewed the situation with senior officials and said train operations were being closely watched.

The Narasapur-Tuticorin Special and the Narasapur-Thiruvannamalai Express have been cancelled on Wednesday. The Thiruvannamalai-Narasapur Special will stop at Bhimavaram. The SMV Bengaluru-Visakhapatnam Special will leave at 4.40 p.m. instead of 3.50 p.m. The Guntur-Dhone Express leaves at 2.30 p.m. instead of 1 p.m.

The Visakhapatnam-Lokmanya Tilak Terminus Express left Visakhapatnam at 4 a.m. instead of 11.20 p.m. on Tuesday. It has been diverted via Eluru instead of Gudivada. The Hubballi-Narasapur Express will be held for about 90 minutes on the way in the Guntur Division.

Thirty-eight flights to and from Visakhapatnam scheduled up to 6.15 p.m. on Wednesday have been cancelled, according to the airport’s flight information page. Nineteen arrivals and 19 departures are off, including international flights to and from Bangkok and Abu Dhabi. 

IndiGo said its flights to and from Rajahmundry, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam would remain affected on Wednesday and asked passengers to check their flight status before leaving for the airport.

Cancelled arrivals

• International: IX 903 from Bangkok, 6E 1443 from Abu Dhabi
• Delhi: 6E 5319, QP 1841, AI 1707
• Hyderabad: 6E 714, 6E 879, 6E 208
• Bengaluru: 6E 217, 6E 969
• Mumbai: 6E 5317; Chennai: 6E 557; Kolkata: 6E 616; Port Blair: 6E 2698
• Pune: IX 2401; Coimbatore: 6E 6181; Tirupati: 6E 7701; Vijayawada: 6E 7731; Jeypore: I7 105

Cancelled departures

• International: 6E 1444 to Abu Dhabi
• Delhi: 6E 2216, QP 1842, AI 1805
• Hyderabad: IX 2402, 6E 716, 6E 6645, 6E 883
• Bengaluru: IX 2065, 6E 218, 6E 2772
• Chennai: 6E 845, 6E 644, 6E 731
• Mumbai: 6E 6029; Kolkata: 6E 617; Tirupati: 6E 7702; Vijayawada: 6E 7730; Jeypore: I7 205

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu held a teleconference with about 32,000 officials and field staff on Wednesday morning and asked them to clear fallen trees and restore traffic within two hours. Power is to be restored as soon as the winds ease and it is safe for crews to work. He also asked officials to prepare early estimates of crop damage.

Deputy Chief Minister and Jana Sena Party president K. Pawan Kalyan has asked party workers to take part in the government’s relief and rescue work. Heavy rain is likely to continue in the coastal districts even after the cyclone crosses the coast, he said. The government is focusing on moving people from low-lying areas to relief camps and supplying food, milk and other essentials.

- V. Raghavendra

Andhra Pradesh has turned 609 school campuses into relief shelters for people moved from cyclone-hit areas on Wednesday. Unsafe buildings have been barricaded.

Schools in 16 coastal districts are closed, and 17,054 NCC, NSS and Scouts volunteers have been mobilised to help.

The Kakinada police rescued four persons stranded in a Central Warehousing Corporation godown in Kakinada Anchorage Port today.

In an official release, Kakinada SP G. Bindhu Madhav has stated: “ Four staff, identified as Chintala Durga Prasad, Bommidi Anand Kumar, Soorreddi Nagaraju and Ganga Appala Raju, have been stranded in the CWC godown after water entered the godown campus”.

They spent the entire night inside the godown until the police rescued them. All of them are safe and reunited with their families. They are natives of Yanam and Kakinada.

-Sumit Bhattacharjee

The residents along the Kakinada coast breathed a sigh of relief this morning as winds weakened, making way for the disaster response personnel to restore the roads blocked by collapsed trees between Kakinada and Amalapuram in the Godavari region. 

Scores of trees have been removed on the same route. However, no human loss has been reported anywhere in the region so far. 

In Yanam, every street has been blocked with the trees that fell due to high-speed winds that were associated with the landfall of cyclone Arnab. Absence of rain enabled the people to come onto the streets in Kakinada and Yanam. 

The personnel from the NDRF and SDRF have intensified restoration of roads and streets. 

The people of Kakinada, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema and West Godavari districts are advised to remain indoors until 11 a.m. 

In many areas, banana and coconut plantations have suffered in Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema district.

-Sumit Bhattacharjee

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu today said no loss of life has been reported so far following Cyclone Arnab, crediting advance precautionary measures taken by the administration for preventing casualties.

Speaking during a teleconference with 32,000 personnel, including district collectors, the Chief Minister directed officials to minimise property damage and restore normalcy in cyclone-affected areas at the earliest.

“No loss of life has been reported so far due to Cyclone Arnab. The advance precautionary measures taken by the administrative machinery helped prevent casualties,” said Mr. Naidu in an official press release.

-PTI

The centre of Cyclone Arnab was over the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coast, just south of Yanam, at 6.30 a.m. on Wednesday, the IMD’s Cyclone Warning Centre in Visakhapatnam said in its 7.30 a.m. bulletin. The rear part of the storm’s wall cloud was expected to cross the coast within the following hour, completing the landfall.

North coastal Andhra Pradesh got the heaviest rain as Cyclone Arnab crossed the coast overnight. Kannuripalem in Kasimkota mandal of Anakapalli district saw about 263 mm in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. on Wednesday, the highest in the State, according to the Andhra Pradesh Directorate of Economics and Statistics (APDES). Bhogapuram in Vizianagaram district and the 16th Police Battalion campus in Visakhapatnam saw about 263 mm and 260 mm.

Thirty-nine automatic weather stations all in Anakapalli, Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts crossed 204.5 mm, the mark the IMD uses for extremely heavy rain. Within Visakhapatnam city, Simhachalam saw about 238 mm, Madhurawada about 207 mm and RK Beach about 111 mm. The IMD’s own station at Waltair in Visakhapatnam recorded 217 mm, Kakinada 118 mm and Machilipatnam 115 mm.

Rayalaseema and the southern districts stayed almost dry, with less than 7.5 mm everywhere.

As Cyclone Arnab approaches the Andhra Pradesh coast, authorities have stepped up evacuations, cancelled train services and flights, and activated cyclone shelters across vulnerable districts. The Hindu’s Sumit Bhattacharjee explains the storm’s expected landfall, the threat of heavy rain and strong winds, and how Andhra Pradesh has strengthened its disaster preparedness since Cyclone Hudhud.

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Cyclone Arnab remained “practically stationary” along the Andhra Pradesh coast early today, and the landfall process is expected to continue for the next 2-3 hours, the IMD said, as heavy rains lashed a number of districts in the southern State.

In some places in the State, police rescued stranded people. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu reviewed the situation on in the morning.

According to the IMD, the northern spiral band of the cyclone has further entered the land, while the storm’s centre remains very close to the coastline.

“The cyclone remains practically stationary along the Andhra Pradesh coast, and the landfall process is expected to continue for another 2-3 hours,” the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in an update at 5.30 a.m.

-PTI

With a severe cyclone expected to cross the Andhra Pradesh coast on Wednesday (October 28, 2026), the Civil Aviation Ministry on Tuesday (October 28, 2026) held a review meeting to assess the situation and ensure the safety of flight operations.

Cyclone’ Arnab’ is forecast to intensify into a very severe cyclone and make landfall on the Andhra Pradesh coast today, with wind speeds of 125–135 km/h.

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The very severe cyclonic storm ‘Arnab’ has begun its landfall process near Narsapur town in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, at around 1.30 a.m. on today.

Experts from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), however, said it is too early to indicate the exact location of the landfall. They said the landfall process may go on for a long time, and they can indicate the tentative landfall point only after the process is over.

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