Cyclone Arnab damaged more than 80,000 hectares of crops in Andhra Pradesh, including over 70,000 hectares of paddy, after making landfall before dawn on 28 October. The storm crossed the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts between 2am and 8am with sustained winds of 125-135 km/h, News On AIR reported, weakening to a severe cyclonic storm within hours.
In neighbouring Odisha, more than 100,000 people were moved to cyclone shelters across eight southern districts, including Malkangiri, Koraput and Ganjam, according to Down To Earth. About 2,200 pregnant women were taken to hospitals as a precaution. No deaths were reported in the state as of 28 October.
Standing paddy caught at the worst possible moment
The timing was punishing for farmers. Down To Earth reported that standing paddy nearing harvest in Ganjam district took the brunt of the damage, alongside winter vegetables soaked by rain and seawater. Preliminary figures from Andhra Pradesh put horticultural losses above 10,000 hectares on top of the paddy damage, though officials stressed these are early estimates.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu announced ex-gratia payments of Rs 5 lakh to families of anyone killed in the storm and asked the central government to send an inter-ministerial team to assess losses. He reviewed relief efforts through the state’s Real-Time Governance Centre, though officials have not yet detailed compensation for crop losses.
Early warning, zero deaths in Odisha
Odisha’s Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suresh Kumar Pujari credited advance preparation for keeping the state’s death toll at zero. “The anticipatory and precautionary measures were taken by the state government to save the lives of the people,” he said. Manorama Mohanty, director of the Regional Meteorological Centre in Bhubaneswar, confirmed the storm’s landfall process was complete by late morning, with its core moving inland and weakening.
The contrast between the two states’ outcomes, zero deaths against widespread crop losses, highlights a familiar pattern along India’s eastern coast: evacuation systems built after earlier cyclones now save lives reliably, even as farm economics remain exposed to a single bad storm. For paddy farmers whose entire season’s income depends on one harvest, a cyclone that arrives in the final fortnight before cutting can wipe out a year’s margin in hours.
Odisha and Andhra Pradesh together produce a significant share of India’s rice crop, and losses here can ripple into domestic prices months later. Kerala, which imports much of its rice from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, will be watching how quickly replanting and relief payments reach affected farmers.
Assessment teams are expected to finalise damage figures within the coming week, which will determine the scale of compensation from both state and central governments.
