India news: Cyclone Arnab brings heavy rain, disruption

Shares of Jio Platforms, a Reliance Industries-backed digital services company owned by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, listed on the India stock exchanges with a premium of over 21%.

That instantly made the company the second most valuable on the exchanges.

Jio's telecommunications business serves over 530 million customers and is backed by Meta Platforms and Alphabet's Google. Its user numbers are second only to China Mobile on the basis of single-country subscribers.

The listing, the first for the Reliance conglomerate in two decades, furthers Ambani's plan to turn Reliance from an oil-and-chemicals conglomerate into an "everything company" spanning consumer products and technology.

The listing was attended by the entire Ambani family, that is Mukesh Ambani himself, his wife Nita, eldest son Akash and other children Isha and Anant.

The family patriarch was seen in tears as his youngest son Anant traced Jio's journey in a speech at the ceremony.

Meanwhile, major Indian newspapers on Wednesday carried front-page ads from Reliance Jio, saying "Thank you, India."

India has become the world's busiest IPO market this year in terms of the number of deals, with 246 listings so far, though it ranked fourth by money raised at $13.5 billion, behind the US, mainland China and Hong Kong, LSEG data showed.

The center of cyclone Arnab had made it to land, authorities told local media on Wednesday morning, as it crawls further inland at 4 kilometers per hour (2.5 miles per hour).

Visuals on social media, from overnight and today morning, show high winds and storm surges. Heavy rainfall flew vertically as old trees struggled to stay upright. Many failed. Local news agencies ANI and PTI showed heavy rainfall and unruly sea water smash the coast of India's southern state, Kerala.

Other footage circulating on social media showed lanes full of fallen trees and broken power lines. Other showed violent winds and heaping waves spill on to a coastal street. These videos were posted by general users and remain unverified.

Old videos of other storms tend to circulate on various channels in such situations. Users are best adivced to remain skeptical and take information provided by verified or government sources.

"Very severe" Cyclone Arnab made a sooner-than-expected landfall along India's east coast and is now "practically stationary" at the edge, authorities said.

The storm, with winds over 125 kilometers per hour (78 miles per hour) and gusts of 150 kilometers per hour (93 miles per hour), is in the third-highest category of storms on a scale of five.

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said its landfall would last for over two hours and that the edge of the storm was already on the coast of the south-eastern state of Andhra Pradesh. Its center remains over sea.

Power, transport disrupted

The cyclone brought heavy rains, high winds and disruption to Andhra and its neighboring state of Odisha. Gales rocked trees, winds and heavy rain disrupted power lines and the storm caused the sea to surge like many locals had never seen before. Flight and train services were also impacted.

"There was a cyclone here three years ago, but the water didn't rise this much," a 35-year-old local resident said, adding that the government had warned them to stock up on groceries beforehand.

The weather agency warned of "total destruction" of thatched houses, localized flooding, the uprooting of power and communications poles, and "widespread damage" to standing crops.

No casualties so far

No loss of life has been reported in either states as of Wednesday morning.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu credited advance precautionary measures for preventing casualties so far. He said so during a teleconference meeting to monitor the impact of the storm onground, news agency Press Trust of India reported.

Together, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha evacuated nearly 100,000 people from vulnerable regions in preperation of the storm. They were moved inland fro better shelter.

"Our homes get flooded, and we have to stay in the water," said Rajeshwari, 65, who gave only one name and had been taken to a government-run shelter near Kakinada. "So the government provided us with a bus, and we came here to shelter," she told AFP.

In Nepal, authorities warned tourists against venturing into high-altitude areas due to fears that Arnab could trigger torrential downpours, snowstorms and avalanches in the Himalayan region from Thursday night through Saturday.

Arnab formed on Monday morning in the Bay of Bengal, a region known for birthing some of the deadliest storms to batter India. This year's season, however, is turbocharged by the El Nino weather phenomenon which is causing unprecedented warming, experts say.