It is anticipated to make landfall between Nellore and Machilipatnam around 11 am on Tuesday.

“As the system is moving northwards close to coast, some parts of the wall cloud region continues to lie over land. It is likely to move nearly northwards parallel and close to south Andhra Pradesh coast and cross south Andhra Pradesh coast close to Bapatla during next 4 hours as a severe cyclonic storm with a maximum sustained wind speed of 90-100 kmph gusting to 110 kmph,” the India Meteorological Department said in its hourly bulletin.

The current intensity of the system at the centre is 90-100 kmph gusting to 110 kmph.

Under the influence of this system, light to moderate rainfall is likely at most places with isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall in South coastal and adjoining South interior Odisha on December 5 and isolated heavy rainfall over the same region on December 6.

December 5

(Orange Warning)

Heavy to very heavy rainfall (7 to 20 cm) very likely to occur at one or two places over the districts of Malkangiri, Koraput, Rayagada, Gajapati, and Ganjam.

(Yellow Warning)

Heavy rainfall (7 to 11 cm) very likely to occur at one or two places over the districts of Nabarangpur, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, and Puri

December 6

(Yellow Warning)

Heavy rainfall (7 to 11 cm) very likely to occur at one or two places over the districts of Ganjam, Gajapati, Puri, Nayagarh, Khurda, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Nabarangpur, Kandhamal, Koraput, Malkangiri and Rayagada

While squally wind speed reaching 35-45 kmph gusting to 55 kmph has prevailed along and off Odisha coast of Gajapati, Ganjam, Puri and Jagatsinghpur districts since last evening, it is expected to gradually increase to 40-50 kmph gusting to 60 kmph from Tuesday evening for subsequent 12 hours.

Also, strong surface wind speed reaching 30-40 kmph gusting to 50 kmph may prevail over Malkangiri, Koraput and Rayagada districts of Odisha on December 5.

According to news agency PTI, the Southern Railway said that an “illegal gas cylinder” on board led to the fire. The passengers of the “private party coach” had arrived from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.

The fire broke out at 5:15 amand the fire service personnel who arrived at the spot half an hour later put down the blaze by 7:15 am, a Southern Railway release said.

“This is a private party coach that was attached at Nagercoil Junction yesterday (Aug 25) by train no. 16730 (Punalur-Madurai Exp). The party coach was detached and kept at Madurai Stabling line. The passengers in the private party coach have….smuggled gas cylinder and this has caused the fire,” the release said.

The party coach had started the journey from Lucknow on August 17, scheduled to return to Chennai on Sunday and return to Lucknow from there, it added.

“While the coach was stabled/parked, some members of the party in the private party coach were using the illegally smuggled cooking gas cylinder unauthorisedly for preparing tea/snacks, which caused the fire in the stabled/parked coach. Most of the passengers could get out of the coach on noticing fire. Some passengers had already got down at platform also before detachment of coach,” it added.

An amount of Rs 10 lakh was being paid to each of the family of those who died, it said.

Southern Railway also announced two helpline numbers for information related to the fire incident and causalities– 9360552608, 8015681915.