India’s western coast and financial capital of Mumbai braced for its first cyclone in a century on Wednesday as cases of the coronavirus continued to surge, Daily Sabah reports. 

Police shooed people away from a beach as light rain fell. Homes in a nearby slum had been left and locked up, and municipal officials patrolled the streets, using bullhorns to order people to stay inside.

Cyclone Nisarga was forecast to drop heavy rains and sustained winds of 100 to 110 kilometers (62 to 68 miles) per hour when it makes landfall Wednesday afternoon near the coastal city of Alibagh, about 98 kilometers (60 miles) south of Mumbai, India's Meteorological Department said.

The state of Goa, south of Maharashtra, already received 127 millimeters (5 inches) of torrential rain, about a week's average, as the cyclone moved along the coast, the meteorological agency said.

Some 100,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas in Maharashtra and neighboring Gujarat, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. Both states, already among the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, activated disaster response teams, fearing extensive flooding could further impair overwhelmed health systems.

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