By Jatindra Dash
BHUBANESHWAR, India (Reuters) – Heavy rains submerged roads and shut down a major airport in southern India on Tuesday, where at least five people, including a child, were killed in the flooding and the havoc hours before a severe cyclone was due to make landfall.
Cyclone Michaung is expected to hit the coast of Andhra Pradesh state around 11 am local time (0530 GMT), the weather office said, gusting in with winds of up to 110 kph (70 mph).
Parts of the state are expected to be pelted with more than 200 mm (8 inches) of rain over the next 24 hours, the weather office said, and at least 8,000 people have been evacuated.
A 4-year-old boy died in Tirupati district after a wall fell, C Nagaraju, executive director of the state’s disaster management authority said, while four people were killed in neighbouring Tamil Nadu state on Monday, officials said.
In Tamil Nadu’s capital Chennai, a major electronics and manufacturing hub, floodwaters swept away cars and submerged a runway, triggering the shutdown of one of India’s busiest airports until Tuesday morning.
Photos in local media showed grounded planes with submerged wheels. The rains and winds also snapped power lines and uprooted trees, officials said.
Taiwan’s Foxconn and Pegatron halted Apple iPhone production at their facilities near Chennai due to heavy rains, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.
In December 2015, floods in Tamil Nadu killed at least 290 people and caused widespread damage.
(Reporting by Jatindra Dash, Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; editing by Miral Fahmy)
