Bhubaneswar:11/10/13:DEVASTATING 1999 CYCLONE IS BACK AS PHAILIN

Paradip stopped cargo operations on Friday after the cyclone warning, port chairman Sudhanshu Shekhara Mishra said.

"There is no cargo operation. We are also not allowing berthing," Mishra said. He said all vessels were ordered to leave the port, which handles coal, crude oil and iron ore.

London-based storm tracking service Tropical Storm Risk placed Phailin in the most intense Category 5 of powerful storms, evoking memories of a devastating "super cyclone" that killed 10,000 people on India's east coast in 1999. That storm battered Odisha for 30 hours with wind speeds reaching 300 kph.

"A recent satellite estimate put Phailin's current intensity on par with 2005's Hurricane Katrina in the United States and just barely stronger than the 1999 cyclone at its peak," said Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist for Quartz magazine.

"That would mean Phailin could be the strongest cyclone ever measured in the Indian Ocean."

India's weather authorities were reluctant to make comparisons to the 1999 cyclone, and most forecasters expected it to weaken upon reaching the coast. Odisha's storm preparedness has improved since 1999.