Al Jazeera English, on Climate, 27 October 2026

6.0out of 10Serious

India evacuates tens of thousands as ‘very severe’ Cyclone Arnab nears

Tap a highlight to see why it matters.1 finding

India is evacuating tens of thousands of people from its eastern coast as a strengthening Cyclone Arnab bears down on its coastal states. The cyclone has intensified since Monday and is expected to make landfall by Wednesday morning. The India Meteorological Department has issued a warning for the coastal states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, saying the “very severe” cyclonic storm was centred only 260km (160 miles) southeast of the port city of Visakhapatnam, the most populous in Andhra Pradesh.

The department expects Arnab to turn northwest and cross the coast by 11:30am local time (06:00 GMT) on Wednesday, with sustained winds of 115-125km/h (71-78mph) and gusts of up to 140km/h (87mph). Andhra Pradesh, India [Al Jazeera] More than 12 million people live along the cyclone’s projected path, which runs inland and north across India, according to Andhra Pradesh’s disaster management authority.

Nearly 50,000 people had been moved to shelters from vulnerable areas of the state by Monday night, out of an estimated 400,000 in need of evacuation, the authority’s managing director, Prakhar Jain, told the Reuters news agency. “Evacuation is continuing,” Jain said. Railway authorities in the region said on social media that at least 12 trains had been cancelled in eastern India and services on 53 routes along the southern coast had been suspended for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Advertisement In Odisha, authorities have announced plans to evacuate 48,000 people out of harm’s way, according to local newspaper The Hindu. Authorities in neighbouring Nepal have advised tourists to stay away from high-altitude areas over concerns that Arnab could trigger heavy rain, snowstorms and avalanches in the Himalayas from Thursday night to Saturday. The advisory comes after a Himalayan flash flood in August killed about 1,500 people in the country.

Read the original article on aljazeera.com (opens in a new tab)
What we found (1)

Al Jazeera gives a clear, well-sourced account of evacuations and forecasts as Cyclone Arnab nears India's eastern coast. It never tells the reader that a warming climate makes intense tropical cyclones like this more likely. It presents the Bay of Bengal's cyclones only as a natural, recurring feature.

  1. Leaves out the climate link

    Serious

    “Arnab formed over the Bay of Bengal, which is among the world’s main breeding grounds for tropical cyclones, frequently affecting India’s eastern coastal regions.”

    Why this matters
    Al Jazeera's only explanation for the storm is geography. The words "main breeding grounds for tropical cyclones" and "frequently affecting" present Arnab as a routine regional event.
    The impression it gives
    A reader comes away believing this very severe cyclone is simply part of the Bay of Bengal's normal pattern, unaffected by anything humans have done.
    The context
    Human-caused warming has made intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe. The article never mentions climate change or warming anywhere, not even in a single line.

    How we know

    • On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
    • On the recordIt is unequivocal that human influence, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
    • Checked against the whole articleIt never uses the words “climate” and “warming”.

    Show it in the article

    Written straight

    Arnab formed over the Bay of Bengal, one of the world's main breeding grounds for tropical cyclones. Climate change is making intense cyclones like this more frequent and more severe.

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