Oct. 29 :    Oct. 29:  A ?supercyclone? whirled through Orissa today, battering its coastal belt and leaving in its afterwash a ghastly trail of destruction. The storm, which is moving towards Bihar, was less harsh on Bengal. With winds howling at 250 km/hour, the cyclone slammed into 10 coastal Orissa districts. Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Balasore, Bhadrak, Ganjam, Khurdah, Cuttack and Kendrapara bore the brunt. The magnitude of the devastation is yet to be gauged. At 9.30 pm, the cyclone lay centred over Cuttack and was moving north-west towards Rourkela. This is the second cyclone to storm through Orissa in 10 days. The earlier one had ravaged Ganjam district on October 17, killing nearly 200 people. While the October 17 storm measured four on the Beaufort scale (used to measure cyclones), today?s storm measured 6.5 by noon. L.K. Chand of the Bhubaneswar Met Office said: ?It is a rare supercyclone, the likes of which we have never seen before.? The cyclone spared most of Bengal, unleashing its fury in Midnapore. Two hundred fishermen, who sailed from Digha three days ago, were feared killed as heavy rains and high winds lashed the Bengal coastline. Gales at 120 km/hour hit Tamluk, devastating four villages and injuring over 200 people. The administration said about 48,000 people were evacuated from Ghoramara and Sagar Island. Alipore Met Office director R.N. Goldar said the cyclone has now weakened, but will take between 24 and 48 hours to dissipate. Winds at speeds between 80 and 100 km/hour will blow across coastal Midnapore, North and South 24-Parganas tonight. The storm smothered Orissa, knocking out telephone and electricity poles, flattening houses and uprooting trees. Eyewitness said not a single tall tree was left standing in Bhubaneswar. The state capital was without electricity with even chief minister Giridhar Gamang?s home and the state secretariat in darkness. Gamang sent an SOS to Delhi and asked Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee for emergency relief and help in rescue operations. Vajpayee has convened an emergency Cabinet meeting tomorrow to review the situation. Down with flu, he will not be able to go to Orissa. Home minister L.K. Advani and defence minister George Fernandes will make the trip tomorrow. With telephone lines down in Orissa, Vajpayee managed to speak to Gamang only twice. Union Cabinet secretary Prabhat Kumar activated the national crisis management committee. The agriculture ministry opened a cell, from which Vajpayee was given bulletins on the cyclone every hour. During the day, tidal waves, 25-30 feet high, whipped Paradip, from where 50,000 people were evacuated. ?We don?t know if Paradip still exists,? said D.N. Padhi, special relief commissioner. With scarcely any telephones working, hardly any detail of the devastation arrived in Bhubaneswar. Bhubaneswar is nearly cut off from the rest of the state. National Highway V between Bhubaneswar and Berhampore has been blocked. So has the Bhubaneswar-Puri Road. With no train or buses available, hundreds of tourists were stranded in Puri. South Eastern Railway has cancelled all trains from Puri to Howrah and all flights from Bhubaneswar. The airport has been closed. ?Though we knew a cyclone was coming, we had never expected anything like this,? Gamang said. ?All our contingency plans have gone awry. I do not know how to cope with this. The toll could be anything. I tried to contact several district headquarters but failed to get through,? he added.