Cyclone Amphan is fast approaching the east coast of India, and is expected to make the landfall between West Bengal and Bangladesh on Wednesday afternoon.

It is the most intense cyclone in Bay of Bengal since a 1999 storm devastated Odisha, killing around 9,000 people.

Amphan has marginally lost its intensity since it began moving towards the coast, it will still hit the coast as extremely severe cyclonic storm. According to glossary of Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), an extremely severe cyclonic storm carries wind speed of between 167 kmph and 221 kmph; a storm is classified as a super cyclone when wind speeds exceed 222 kmph.

Amphan is expected to cause widespread damage in inland areas, including inundating of land and destruction of huts or other temporary settlements.

Authorities have evacuated 42 million people from low-lying areas in Odisha and West Bengal, the two states which will be severely affected by the cyclonic storm. Amphan’s impact will also be seen in Sikkim, Assam and Meghalaya as it will move north-northwards on Thursday and Friday.

Some of the deadliest storms in history have formed in the Bay of Bengal, including one in 1970 that killed half a million people in what is modern-day Bangladesh. Here is a list of some of them:

• Some 1,38,000 died in Bangladesh in 1991 in a tidal wave caused by a cyclone.

• In 1999 in Odisha, 10,000 people were killed by a cyclone.

• In 2007, Cyclone Sidr killed at least 4,000 in southern Bangladesh.

• Then in 2008 Cyclone Nargis, which devastated Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta, killed about 140,000 people.