A cyclone has barrelled into eastern India bringing down trees and power lines, "extensively" damaging tourist areas and forcing the mass evacuation of 1million people.
India's weather office says the powerful cyclone, named Cyclone Fani, is the strongest storm in the country in five years.
Fani has been battering the east coast of the country with torrential rain and winds gusting up to 124 mph, bringing down trees and power lines, but authorities stay the storm is beginning to weaken.
There have been no early reports of casualties, with a million people fleeing before it made landfall.
Neighbouring Bangladesh is next in the cyclone's path, and authorities there have begun readying for the storm by evacuating coastal districts.
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The storm spent days building up power in the northern reaches of the Bay of Bengal, and tropical Cyclone Fani finally struck the coast of Odisha state at around 8 am Friday, local time (3.20am GMT), the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The state had evacuated more than a million people from the most vulnerable communities along the low-lying coast during the past 24 hours, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said on Twitter .
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Close to 60 km (37 miles) inland, high winds uprooted trees and electricity poles in the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, where authorities had ordered the airport to stay closed.
Schools and colleges in Odisha were also shut.
Hundreds of disaster management personnel were deployed in the state, and doctors and other medical staff were told to defer any leave until May 15.
More than 600 pregnant women were shifted into safe locations, with nearly 500 ambulances on standby. Some 242 medical institutions had been provided with power back-up, government authorities said.
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Neighbouring West Bengal also decided to close an airport at Kolkata, its state capital.
India's cyclone season can last from April to December, when severe storms batter coastal cities and cause widespread deaths and damage to crops and property in both India and neighbouring Bangladesh.
Technological advancements have helped meteorologists to predict weather patterns well in advance, and authorities have become far better at preparing for the ferocious storms and reducing casualties.
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A super-cyclone battered the coast of Odisha for 30 hours in 1999, killing 10,000 people. While in 2013, a mass evacuation of nearly a million people likely saved thousands of lives.
Cyclones typically quickly lose power as they move inland.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his officials to stay in touch with the states at risk from Cyclone Fani.
Damage in Puri is extensive, power supply, telephone lines disrupted," Odisha's Special Relief Commissioner Bishnupada Sethi told Reuters, referring to the seaside Hindu temple town popular with pilgrims and was directly in the storm's path.
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He added that "no casualties had been reported so far."
Cyclone tracker Tropical Storm Risk put Fani as a powerful category four storm on a scale of one to five.
In neighbouring Bangladesh to the north, authorities have begun moving 500,000 people from seven coastal districts, a government minister said. The storm is due to hit late on Saturday local time.
