Write a diary entry on cyclone fani
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A day of fatal miscalculations. A day when death and its nauseating stench was everywhere. A day when all hell broke loose and nobody knew what to do. All rested on hope. But that day, even hope died.
On October 29, 1999, a 'super cyclone' slammed into Odisha, then known as Orissa. Everyone knew the cyclone was coming. But, nobody knew how bad it was going to be.
State government officials had underestimated the super cyclone's intensity and had miscalculated its path. There were not enough cyclone shelters to protect Orissa's tens of thousands of people. And, the government machinery was mired in chaos and confusion.
The result? A death toll so high that thousands of bodies had to be "bulldozed into vast, faceless graves", according to an India Today report from 1999.
The 1999 Super Cyclone ranks among the worst natural disasters in India. Nearly 10,000 people died, according to official estimates. More than 3.5 lakh houses were destroyed, several villages were completely washed away, more than two lakh animals were killed and 25 lakh people were marooned.
So bad was the damage to Odisha's infrastructure that the state went out of contact with the rest of the world for an entire day.