By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 9, 2019: US space agency Nasa shared images showing where the lights went out across some of the worst affected areas in Odisha after Cyclone Fani.

About 35 lakh households in Odisha were left without electricity for days after Cyclone Fani, one of the worst storms to hit India since 1999, made landfall in the state last week. US space agency NASA released before-and-after pictures of Bhubaneswar which shows the power outage in some of the worst affected areas in the state.

Cyclone Fani, which had intensified as an extremely severe cyclonic storm, made landfall across the coast of Puri on May 3 with its wind speed at 200kmph, killing at least 40 people

Cyclone Fani, which had intensified as an extremely severe cyclonic storm, made landfall across the coast of Puri in the morning of May 3, with its wind speed at 200kmph. The storm left behind a trail of destruction as it crossed through the state to enter West Bengal, and eventually Meghalaya and Bangladesh. At least 40 people were killed in the cyclone, left a hundred others homeless in the cities of Puri, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Khurda, NASA noted in its website.

The space agency said that the images shared by it were “data visualisations of where the lights went out across some of the worst affected areas in Odisha.” The images depicted the city lighting on April 30 (two days before the storm) and on May 5, two days after the storm had made landfall in Puri.

“These images were made from data acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite. VIIRS has a “day-night band” that detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared, including reflected moonlight, light from fires and oil wells, lightning, and emissions from cities or other human activity,” NASA said.

At least 11 lakh people were evacuated in a matter of few days from the vulnerable and low-lying areas in Odisha, in what is considered to be one of the biggest evacuation projects undertaken in the country.

Meanwhile, the Home Ministry on Wednesday stated that the power situation in eight of the nine cyclone-hit districts of the state had become better. A statement by the home ministry said, “The state government has informed the Centre that situation in eight out of nine districts has improved and power and telecom services are gradually picking up in the worst-affected areas of Puri and Bhubaneswar.”