India reportedly plans to evacuate 800,000 people as cyclone Fani approaches eastern coast

• India is planning to evacuate as many as 800,000 people using special buses, trains and boats along its east coast.
  
• Fani is a cyclonic storm building up in the Bay of Bengal that is expected to hit India’s eastern coast within 24 hours.
  
• The Indian Meteorological Department has issued a warning saying that the Fani has turned into an "extreme severe cyclonic" storm.
  

In view of the cyclonic storm Fani, India is planning to evacuate as many as 800,000 people using special buses, trains and boats along its east coast side that is expected to hit the country within 24 hours, reported Reuters citing an official.

Fani is a cyclonic storm building up in the Bay of Bengal that is expected to hit India’s eastern coast in the state of Odisha between Gopalpur and Chandbali. The railways have cancelled 103 trains following the warning of a cyclonic storm. Recently, The Indian Meteorological Department recently issued a warning saying that the Fani has turned into an "extreme severe cyclonic" storm.

According to the latest update, Fani is located around 225 kilometres south-southeast of Visakhapatnam and around 430 kilometres south-southwest of Puri, said the India Meteorological Department.

Ministry of Home Affairs has ordered to release financial assistance, in advance, of ₹10.8 billion to four states that stand threatened by the natural disaster.

Moreover, The East Coast Railway (ECoR) has decided to run a special train from Puri to Shalimar on Thursday for tourists in view of the landfall of cyclonic storm Fani on the Odisha coast.

The train is scheduled to leave Puri at 12 noon on Thursday. It will make stoppages at Khurda Road, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Jajpur, Keonjhar Road, Bhadrak, Balasore and Kharagpur, said an ECoR official.

Odisha was hit for 30 hours by a super cyclone two decades ago that killed 10,000. However, a million people were saved through mass evacuation, said the report.

India has a cyclone season that generally starts in April and lasts till December. The season bounds tens of thousands of people to evacuate from their home leaving severe damages to infrastructure. Both India and Bangladesh have witnessed deaths and damages to crop and property.