By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 8, 2019: Odisha – ravaged by severe cyclone Fani, slowly is recovering from the shock and destruction wrecked by the rarest summer cyclone. 38 people already have been killed and hundreds injured, officials said.

Four days after Cyclone Fani pummeled the Odisha coast with wind speeds of up to 205 km per hour, the two temple cities of Bhubaneswar and Puri and adjoining areas are clearly in distress. People are virtually struggling to have power and water. Vegetable prices have jacked up.

“Cyclone Fani is one of the rarest of rare summer cyclones to hit Odisha in 43 years. The devastation is unfathomable and unprecedented,” tweeted chief minister Naveen Patnaik, a day after the cyclone ripped through the Odisha coast.

Giant trees have fallen down all along the road from here to Puri and hundreds of electric poles and power transformers lay scattered on the 65-km stretch of the National Highway 316. Puri only accounts for one third of 1.56 lakh electric poles uprooted, officials said.

Puri, where Fani made landfall on May 3, is almost pulverised as if hit by some brutal force that left bruising scars on several prominent landmarks.

The iron scaffolding covering the Jagannath temple, the biggest tourist attraction in the city, has crumbled. Kalpa Bata, a huge banyan tree in the sprawling temple, has broken.

A day before the cyclone hit, his administration evacuated over 1.4 million people in the arc of the cyclone to safe houses. The state’s prompt action earned praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited Odisha on May 6.

The Centre has already announced an assistance of Rs 1,000 crore after making an aerial survey of the affected areas, and has promised more.

The state’s efforts minimised the damage, but it is grappling with relief and restoration work. Power and telecom connectivity has been hit hard, with the cyclone damaging the infrastructure. More than 1.4 crore people in about 16,000 villages and 51 urban local bodies have been affected by Fani.

The telecom services have suffered near-total breakdown in Puri, Khurda and Cuttack, with several mobile towers of BSNL, Reliance Jio and Airtel damaged.

Lack of power has hit the people of Puri, Khurda and Bhubaneswar already facing a cruel summer. One thousand electricity employees from Telangana left for Odisha Tuesday to help in works to restore power supply in the coastal state, ravaged by cyclone Fani.

Earlier, the Odisha government has requested the Telangana government for help in restoration of power supply as electric poles and supply lines suffered heavy damage due to the cyclone.

Power has been restored in very minuscule parts of Bhubaneswar. But it will take at least one week to bring the power situation to normalcy.

Nevertheless, the green canopy that Puri and Bhubaneswar once boasted is now a thing of past and it may take decades to bring back the old picturesque temple cities to its original form, experts said.