Indian pilgrim city feels full force of cyclone

Roadside carts, store signs and tree trunks flew in the air as Cyclone Fani's brutal winds battered the Hindu pilgrimage city of Puri on Friday.

Palm trees lining Puri's beach were bent double by express-train winds of 200 kilometeres (125 miles) an hour that came off the Bay of Bengal.

Others were torn up and carried away into the town.

AFP correspondents in Puri said no drivers dared go out on the streets as what was billed as an "extremely severe" storm made landfall.

One witness reported seeing a small car being pushed along a road by the winds before being turned over.

"It just went dark and then suddenly we could barely see five metres in front of us," the man told AFP from a hotel where he had taken shelter.

"There were the roadside food carts, store signs all flying by in the air.

"The wind is deafening there is no reason to risk going out there," he said, before phones were cut.

- Temple risk -

Much of the city of 200,000 people lost electricity and water ahead of the storm's arrival. Phones went dead as soon as Fani's eye crossed onto land.

"We have been unable to make contact with our team in Puri for some time now to get the latest update about the situation there," H.R Biswas, the dirctor of the Indian Meteorology Department in the state capital, Bhubaneswar, told AFP.

A few police vehicles and tractors had tried to move fallen trees or push aside collapsed walls but they soon disappeared as the storm power grew.

Media reports said hundreds of trees were uprooted at Chilika Lake just south of Puri in the first violent winds.

On Thursday, authorities launched a desperate campaign to persuade residents in Puri to leave.

In total, they aim to move more than 1.1 million people away from coastal areas in Odisha and nearby West Bengal states.

A storm that hit the same region in 1999 killed nearly 10,000 people.

While Indian Railways cancelled most trains in the two states, special services were organised to get Hindu pilgrims away from Puri. Major airports in the region, including Kolkata's international airport, were closed because of the storm.

Many Puri residents chose to remain however, taking shelter in local schools and hotels.

Krishna Chandra Sahu, 43, took seven members of his family to a city hotel to ride out the storm.

"We didn't feel our home was safe so we came here," he told AFP.

"We will just stay for the day until the cyclone has passed. We are not scared but we feel safer here."

Hindu faithful and local authorities anxiously surveyed the the 850-year-old Jagannath temple to see how it had withstood the storm so far.

It is one of the most important pilgrimage sites for Hindus and a major draw for the Bay of Bengal resort.

Tourism accounts for three-quarters of Puri's economy and the city can ill afford the havoc threatened by the cyclone.

HSBC posts strong jump in pre-tax profit, reins in costs
Hong Kong (AFP) May 3, 2019 - Banking giant HSBC said on Friday that pre-tax profit jumped 30.7 percent to $6.2 billion in the first three months of the year, describing the results as "encouraging" despite an uncertain global outlook.

The London-based behemoth also said it had reduced reported operating expenses by 12 percent as group chief executive John Flint embarks on a planned overhaul aimed at growing the bank while keeping a lid on costs.

Reported profit after tax jumped 31.4 percent to $4.9 billion in the period, thanks to strong revenue growth in retail banking, wealth management and commercial business, the lender said.

"We have made a good start to 2019," Flint, who took the helm in February last year, said in a filing with Hong Kong's stock exchange announcing the results.

"We remain alert to risks in the global economy. We are proactively managing costs and investment in line with this more uncertain outlook and will continue to do so," he added.

Shares in the bank were down 0.07 percent at HK$68.2 when Hong Kong markets opened for afternoon trading, paring sharper losses seen before the break.

Flint's progress in bringing costs more under control will be welcomed by investors especially given revenue gains outpaced cost increases in the first three months of the year.

The Asia-centric bank had failed to live up to its pledge to produce positive jaws last year.

Analyst Dickie Wong from Kingston Securities said Flint's arrival had injected some fresh energy into the bank and a tighter leash around costs.

"A new person, a new style, brings in a new atmosphere," he said, using a Chinese idiom.

Adjusted operating expenses rose 3.2 percent in the quarter, compared with a 5.6 percent increase in the same period last year.

HSBC saw a profitable 2018 but it suffered a tough final quarter when it took a hit from uncertainty over Brexit and the long-running trade row between Washington and Beijing.

Overall, last year saw strong growth for HSBC with net profit ballooning 30 percent to $12.6 billion.

But the yearly growth figures were dampened by a tough final quarter when the markets -- especially those in Hong Kong and China -- went into meltdown over global trade fears.

It's "time for the organisation to get back into growth mode," Flint said in recent video produced by HSBC detailing his first year in office.

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Mass evacuations as monster cyclone targets India
Bhubaneswar, India (AFP) May 2, 2019
Nearly 800,000 people in eastern India have been evacuated from the expected path of a major cyclone packing winds up to 200 kilometres (125 miles) per hour and torrential rains, officials said Thursday. The Indian weather service said Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Fani was expected to make landfall on Friday afternoon in Odisha state and barrel northeastwards on a pathway close to the homes of more than 100 million people. A state relief department official told AFP that 780,000 people were m ... read more