
Cyclone Phailin on Sunday left a trail of destruction knocking down lakhs of homes affecting nearly 90 lakh people and destroying paddy crops worth about Rs 2,400 crore, but Odisha and Andhra Pradesh escaped from widespread loss of life.
As the largest evacuation efforts in the country's recent history helped keep casualties to the minimum, reports from the two states tonight said that 23 people died, all but two of them in Odisha. Most of the casualties were caused by wall collapse, uprooted trees and in floods.
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