Cyclone Mandous: Four people have died across Tamil Nadu after Cyclonic storm Mandous crossed the coast at Mamallapuram near Chennai.

“Around 400 trees fell in the city under the impact of 70 kmph wind speed when the weather system crossed the coast on the intervening night of December 9 and 10,” Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said. Four persons were killed, he said without elaborating, as reported by news agency PTI.

Cyclone Mandous made landfall late Friday night, crossing the coast with a wind speed of 75 km an hour. The cyclone has now weakened into a deep depression according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

#WATCH | Heavy rains with strong winds in Pattinapakkam area of Chennai as landfall process of cyclone #Mandous begins. pic.twitter.com/tVFN7nbPYH

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— ANI (@ANI) December 9, 2022

“The cyclonic storm Mandous (meaning treasure box) weakened into a deep depression over north Tamil Nadu coast. To move nearly west-northwestwards and gradually weaken into a depression by noon of 10th December,” the IMD Chennai said in a tweet in the early hours of Saturday.

Stalin said that the government anticipated the situation and put in all preventive measures and could therefore prevent major damage.

“Around 400 trees fell due to the impact of the high wind speed. Many trees had fallen on electric poles but the clearing work was on in full swing,” he said. Around 25,000 civic workers were involved in various activities, as reported by PTI.

“With the cyclone causing damage to electric poles and transformers, power had been suspended in 600 places and it has been set right in 300 of them. The rest of the work will be over by evening,” Stalin said.

The IMD said it has crossed the Mamallapuram coast and weakened after completing its landfall process late Friday. A wall collapsed in T Nagar area of Chennai and caused severe damage to three cars that were parked near it. Nobody was present inside the vehicles at the time of the incident.

S Balachandran, DDGM, RMC Chennai, said “Cyclone Mandous crossed the coast and is in deep depression and its strength is weakening. It is moving towards the Northwest direction so areas in northwest districts will witness strong winds of 55-65 kmph which will further decrease by evening to 30-40 kmph.”

Around 16,000 policemen and 1,500 home guards have been deployed in the relief work. The NDRF and SDRF teams are on alert in the state.

(With input from agencies)