GUJARAT, India (NBC) – Parts of western India are preparing for a tropical cyclone to make landfall Thursday with top winds of 96 miles-per-hour and gusts up to 106.
Strong waves and an overcast sky are already seen in the Indian state of Gujarat.
Cyclone Vayu is making a bead on the coast north of Mumbai with a potential storm surge of more than six feet.
India’s meteorological agency says the surge would inundate low-lying areas.
The storm named after the Hindi word for “wind” is poised to hit the Gujarat coast tomorrow Thursday afternoon as India’s second major storm of the season.
Authorities are evacuating over 500 villages in anticipation of the storm.
Volunteers and officials have been packing bags of food for the quarter of a million evacuees.
The scale of the likely damage wasn’t immediately clear, but authorities have warned about disrupted communication, power outages and damaged roads.
In May, another cyclone killed at least 34 people on India’s east coast.
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