At least 11 people were killed and 25 injured when a tropical storm swept through a large portion of India's West Bengal state, officials said Monday. The 10-minute storm carried winds of over 80 kilometres (50 miles) an hour through the state, destroying thousands of mud huts, uprooting electricity and telephone poles and damaging paddy fields and mango crops.
Five people, including three children, were killed after lightning struck their mud hut in Malda, about 360km north of the state capital, Kolkata. "Four others were electrocuted as live wire from uprooted electric poles dropped on them in villages on the outskirts of Kolkata," said West Bengal relief minister Mortaza Hossain.