Cyclone Amphan Begins Landfall: Heavy Rain in Bengal

Cyclone Amphan, one of the worst storms over the Bay of Bengal in years, has started making landfall.

"The landfall process began at 2:30 pm and will continue for about four hours. The forward sector of the wall cloud region is entering into land in West Bengal," the Director of India Meteorological Department or IMD Bhubaneswar



told news agency ANI. Amphan weakened from a super cyclone to an "extremely severe cyclonic storm" on Tuesday, causing strong winds and heavy rain in parts of Odisha and Bengal as it advanced towards the Indian coast. 

This afternoon, the storm lay centered over northwest Bay of Bengal, just 95 km from West Bengal's Digha town.