**At least 30 people have died in a powerful storm that ravaged a district of India’s eastern state of West Bengal, officials have said.**The state’s civil defence minister Srikumar Mukherji has rushed to the Uttar Dinajpur district , where the devastation was huge.
Mr Mukherji is personally overseeing relief operations.
He told the BBC that bodies are being found in the rubble of 50,000 houses that collapsed or were damaged.
Hundreds of people have been hospitalised with severe injuries.
The BBC’s Subir Bhaumik says that the worst damage was reported from Raiganj, Islampur, Ka*****ghi, Kaliaganj and Hemtabad.
Our correspondent says that the storm was followed by heavy rains that furthered added to the woes of the villagers whose housetops had earlier been blown away.
The whole district is without power because electricity poles collapsed after trees uprooted by the storm fell on them.
Telecommunication links have also been severely hit.
In May last year more than 155 people were killed by Cyclone Aila which hit West Bengal and Bangladesh.This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.