CHENNAI, India: A cyclone barrelled into the southeast coast of India on Monday, killing at least two people and bringing down trees and power lines as authorities moved tens of thousands of people from low-lying areas.
Cyclone Vardah moved west over the Bay of Bengal before hitting Chennai, capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, as well as neighboring Andhra Pradesh, the Indian Meteorological Department said, describing it as a “very severe storm.”
Strong wind of up to 140 kph battered the densely populated coast, uprooting trees and bringing down electricity pylons.
Flights at Chennai airport were canceled, railway services in the area suspended and schools and colleges were closed.
Chennai is home to Indian operations of major auto firms such as Ford Motor Daimler Hyundai and Nissan.
Vardah is forecast to pass over Chennai over the next few hours, drenching the city in heavy rain before easing in intensity, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said. “Winds to pick up after current lull period. Everyone to not venture out,” the NDMA said on Twitter, adding that two people had been killed and 24 homes damaged.
“Expect very heavy rainfall after few hours. To become better once system crosses completely.”
A “storm surge” will be about one meter (three feet) high.
More than 23,000 people in Tamil Nadu have been moved to relief centers, with plans for tens of thousands more to be evacuated if needed, a senior state official, K. Satyagopal, told Reuters.
More than 10,000 people from two districts in Andhra Pradesh state had also been moved, its disaster management commissioner, M.V. Seshagiri Babu, said.
The NDMA warned fishermen not to venture out to sea for the next 36 hours, and urged residents to stay in safe places.
Navy ships and aircraft, as well as 30 diving teams, were on standby to help move people and deliver aid if needed, a navy spokesman said.
India’s cyclone season usually runs from April to December, with storms often causing dozens of deaths, evacuations of tens of thousands of people and widespread damage to crops and property.
Wind speeds topped 300 km per hour in an Indian “super-cyclone” that killed 10,000 people in 1999, while a cyclone packing speeds of more than 200 kph lashed the east coast in 2013.
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Cyclone batters south India coast killing two
Cyclone batters south India coast killing two
Europe explores deporting Afghans back to Taliban-controlled nation
BRUSSELS: The European Union is pushing ahead with plans to deport Afghans with no right to stay in the bloc back to their country, raising practical challenges and concerns from the UN refugee agency.
Under pressure from member states to crack down on irregular migration, Brussels has initiated contacts with the Taliban government in Kabul to assess the feasibility of returns.
EU officials carried out two “technical missions” to the country — the latest in January — to “explore the structuring of the work on readmission and possible organization of return operations,” Markus Lammert, a European Commission spokesman, said this week.
Returns would have been unthinkable only a few years ago and are fraught with legal and ethical concerns. Human Rights Watch this week warned the Taliban authorities “increased their repression” last year, citing new rules curbing media freedom and restrictions on women and girls.
But the issue of returns is now being pushed by a majority of the EU’s 27 nations following a souring of public opinion on migration that has fueled right-wing electoral gains across the bloc.
“There has been a shift... where there’s much more talk about this,” said Arafat Jamal, the United Nations refugee agency’s representative in Afghanistan.
“It is extremely worrying because it seems like a policy based on emotion and reaction, but not on actual wisdom.”
Stepping up deportations has become a common refrain among EU nations, as fewer than 20 percent of people ordered to leave the bloc are currently returned to their country of origin, according to official data.
EU countries received about a million asylum applications filed by Afghans between 2013 and 2024, according to the bloc’s data agency. About half as many were approved over the same period.
In 2025, Afghans represented the largest group of applicants, followed by Venezuelans and Syrians.
Italy, Poland and Sweden are among 20 EU countries that backed Belgium in October in urging the commission to enable voluntary and forced returns of those whose applications were rejected, with some lamenting that even convicted criminals could not be expelled.
Freddy Roosemont, director general of the Belgian Immigration Office, told AFP his government was “currently working” with the EU executive and like-minded partners “to find a solution to this problem.”
- ‘Mass deportation’ -
Meanwhile some have pushed ahead.
Germany has deported more than 100 Afghans since 2024, via charter flights facilitated by Qatar.
Attitudes in the country have been hardened by a string of deadly attacks by Afghans in recent years, including a car-ramming in Munich last year and a 2024 stabbing spree in Mannheim.
Austria has followed, deporting the first Afghan man since 2021 in October.
Others, like France, have aired reservations.
Returns to Afghanistan “pose challenges,” admitted Lammert.
The country is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, compounded by drought and huge cuts in foreign aid, rights groups say.
Generations of Afghans who fled to neighboring Pakistan and Iran over decades of successive wars are being forcibly pushed back.
More than five million Afghans have returned since 2023 and, often unable to find jobs, most live in poverty.
Talking to the Taliban authorities to arrange returns poses challenges of its own.
European governments shut their embassies in Kabul when the Taliban authorities returned to power in 2021 and imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law.
The EU has maintained a diplomatic presence in the country but contacts have been limited to certain areas and Brussels has stressed that the engagement “does not bestow any legitimacy” on the Taliban government.
Conversely, the Taliban authorities do not recognize the legitimacy of some of Afghanistan’s diplomatic missions abroad, because of their ties to the previous government.
This poses a host of logistical issues, such as how to issue valid passports to returnees.
The EU’s exploratory missions to Afghanistan focused on these and other practical concerns, according to a source directly involved in the discussions.
“They’re looking at the planes, what is the capacity at the airport, they’re talking with the Taliban about what would happen to the people” who are returned, said the source.
“They’re testing the waters, they want to see if they can implement a mass deportation system.”
If that becomes a reality it should at the very least be accompanied by a significant increase in European aid flowing to the country, warned Jamal, the UN refugee agency’s representative.
“Returning people to Afghanistan without increasing assistance is incoherent, and is bound to create a risky imbalance,” he said.
Under pressure from member states to crack down on irregular migration, Brussels has initiated contacts with the Taliban government in Kabul to assess the feasibility of returns.
EU officials carried out two “technical missions” to the country — the latest in January — to “explore the structuring of the work on readmission and possible organization of return operations,” Markus Lammert, a European Commission spokesman, said this week.
Returns would have been unthinkable only a few years ago and are fraught with legal and ethical concerns. Human Rights Watch this week warned the Taliban authorities “increased their repression” last year, citing new rules curbing media freedom and restrictions on women and girls.
But the issue of returns is now being pushed by a majority of the EU’s 27 nations following a souring of public opinion on migration that has fueled right-wing electoral gains across the bloc.
“There has been a shift... where there’s much more talk about this,” said Arafat Jamal, the United Nations refugee agency’s representative in Afghanistan.
“It is extremely worrying because it seems like a policy based on emotion and reaction, but not on actual wisdom.”
Stepping up deportations has become a common refrain among EU nations, as fewer than 20 percent of people ordered to leave the bloc are currently returned to their country of origin, according to official data.
EU countries received about a million asylum applications filed by Afghans between 2013 and 2024, according to the bloc’s data agency. About half as many were approved over the same period.
In 2025, Afghans represented the largest group of applicants, followed by Venezuelans and Syrians.
Italy, Poland and Sweden are among 20 EU countries that backed Belgium in October in urging the commission to enable voluntary and forced returns of those whose applications were rejected, with some lamenting that even convicted criminals could not be expelled.
Freddy Roosemont, director general of the Belgian Immigration Office, told AFP his government was “currently working” with the EU executive and like-minded partners “to find a solution to this problem.”
- ‘Mass deportation’ -
Meanwhile some have pushed ahead.
Germany has deported more than 100 Afghans since 2024, via charter flights facilitated by Qatar.
Attitudes in the country have been hardened by a string of deadly attacks by Afghans in recent years, including a car-ramming in Munich last year and a 2024 stabbing spree in Mannheim.
Austria has followed, deporting the first Afghan man since 2021 in October.
Others, like France, have aired reservations.
Returns to Afghanistan “pose challenges,” admitted Lammert.
The country is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, compounded by drought and huge cuts in foreign aid, rights groups say.
Generations of Afghans who fled to neighboring Pakistan and Iran over decades of successive wars are being forcibly pushed back.
More than five million Afghans have returned since 2023 and, often unable to find jobs, most live in poverty.
Talking to the Taliban authorities to arrange returns poses challenges of its own.
European governments shut their embassies in Kabul when the Taliban authorities returned to power in 2021 and imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law.
The EU has maintained a diplomatic presence in the country but contacts have been limited to certain areas and Brussels has stressed that the engagement “does not bestow any legitimacy” on the Taliban government.
Conversely, the Taliban authorities do not recognize the legitimacy of some of Afghanistan’s diplomatic missions abroad, because of their ties to the previous government.
This poses a host of logistical issues, such as how to issue valid passports to returnees.
The EU’s exploratory missions to Afghanistan focused on these and other practical concerns, according to a source directly involved in the discussions.
“They’re looking at the planes, what is the capacity at the airport, they’re talking with the Taliban about what would happen to the people” who are returned, said the source.
“They’re testing the waters, they want to see if they can implement a mass deportation system.”
If that becomes a reality it should at the very least be accompanied by a significant increase in European aid flowing to the country, warned Jamal, the UN refugee agency’s representative.
“Returning people to Afghanistan without increasing assistance is incoherent, and is bound to create a risky imbalance,” he said.
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