Cyclone a national calamity8217;

At least 10 million people have been affected in eight districts of the state whose entire coastal area has been severely hit, Vajpayee told reporters after over a 90-minute special meeting of the cabinet to take stock of the calamity.

8220;Such has been the destruction and disruption of communications that the stategovernment has not yet been able to make any preliminary assessment of the loss to human life and property,8221; he said.

He appealed to the public, voluntary organisations and others to provide relief generously to the cyclone-hit people and help in their early rehabilitation.

Rescue and relief operations by Indian Air Force planes and helicopters were stalled by inclement weather for the second day today as Orissa remained cut off from the rest of the world.

Telecom links were totally snapped by the natural calamity putting a lid on the awesome trail of death and destruction. The links were likely to be restored by late Saturday night with some workable facilities, Minister of State for Communications Tapan Sikdar told reporters in Calcutta.

Dr S R Khalsi, Deputy Director General in charge of the cyclone warning centre at the headquarters of the meteorological department, briefed the cabinet about the super cyclone. He said the system had now weakened into a cyclonic storm with wind speed of 80 km perhour and was static over 200 sq km of area.

He said the system was located 50 km inside the land and 30 km north-east of Bhubaneswar. It may take another 24 hours to weaken further and move with its direction difficult to predict.

A similar cyclone had struck the Andhra Pradesh coast in 1977 leaving a trail of destruction, claiming more than 10,000 lives. The loss of human life this time may be less with more than a lakh of people evacuated from the Orissa coast.

Agriculture Department secretary Bhaskar Barua said all communications stood disrupted in the cyclone-battered areas and the only link was through a satellite telephone from Bhubaneswar and Gangapatnam belonging to the telecom department. Nothing concrete could be said about the extent of deaths or damage to property.

In response to the call of the Centre to all the state governments, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have rushed truckloads of relief material to the Orissa coast.