NARSAPUR, India — Cyclone Arnab crossed the Andhra Pradesh coast in the early hours of Wednesday as a very severe cyclonic storm, killing at least three people and damaging crops over about 70,900 hectares, according to the state government, before weakening over land.

The India Meteorological Department said the storm made landfall at about 1.20 am local time near 16.45 degrees north and 81.90 degrees east, roughly 20 km east-north-east of the river town of Narsapur and 40 km south-west of Yanam. Sustained winds reached 125 to 135 km/h, with gusts of up to 150 km/h.

Three days of warnings preceded it. More than 180,000 people were moved out of the storm's path in Andhra Pradesh and neighbouring Odisha, millions of electricity connections went dark, and more than 90 trains were pulled from service. Andhra Pradesh had not published a consolidated casualty figure by Wednesday evening.

Narendra Singh Bundela, an inspector general of the National Disaster Response Force, told reporters in New Delhi that "three people have lost their lives", all of them in Andhra Pradesh.

A 53-year-old man in Visakhapatnam district died after touching a snapped live wire on Tuesday night. A 55-year-old woman was killed at Yellamanchili, in Anakapalli district, after stepping on an exposed wire on Wednesday morning. Chokka Kishore Kumar, 46, died at Bhimavaram when a tree fell on him.

Bundela said 714 villages in the state had been affected and that 31 houses were damaged. The north of Andhra Pradesh and the south of Odisha had taken the worst of it, he said, adding that "there has not been a serious impact in Odisha as per preliminary reports."

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu put the building damage higher. In a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah asking for an early central assessment team, he said about 180 houses had been hit, most of them in Ambedkar Konaseema district, and that more than 220 trees had come down on state roads. About 170 of those had been cleared by Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier on Wednesday, in a teleconference with field staff, Naidu had said the state came through without fatalities, a claim at odds with the federal force's count. "No loss of life has been reported so far due to Cyclone Arnab," he said. By the evening he was offering condolences to bereaved families.

His figures put crop damage at about 70,900 hectares, much of it paddy, and about 10,450 hectares inundated or damaged. The office of Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan said roughly 10,500 hectares of horticultural crops, including coconut plantations, had been hit.

Power took longest to restore. Immadi Prithvitej, managing director of the state distribution company APEPDCL, said more than 15,000 poles had been uprooted across coastal Andhra Pradesh, with Kakinada, Ambedkar Konaseema and West Godavari the worst hit. Of 3,872 villages cut off, 2,549 had supply restored by late Wednesday.

The company said 2.57 million non-agricultural connections had been disrupted, of which 705,000 were back, along with 22,627 of 96,643 farm connections. It valued preliminary damage to power infrastructure at 165.4 million rupees and said 703 teams with 8,161 workers were in the field. Prithvitej said the remaining work in the worst-hit districts should take another 24 to 48 hours.

Indian Railways cancelled at least 91 services across its eastern and southern networks. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said: "Minor disruptions like tree falls reported across 10 locations were promptly attended to." The civil aviation ministry said operations at three Andhra Pradesh airports were suspended. Airport schedules showed 18 of 21 Vijayawada flights cancelled on Wednesday, and 12 more linking Chennai with Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Rajahmundry were dropped.

In Kakinada district, a resident, Nagi, told Reuters: "Trees have fallen, houses have been damaged, and all our belongings, including our books, have been destroyed."

Odisha came off lighter. Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari said more than 30,000 people had been moved to safety in the south of the state, where 313 response teams were deployed and 2,037 cyclone shelters readied; the state government later put the number moved closer to 100,000. All 19,143 of Odisha's registered fishing boats were back on shore.

Karumuri Venkata Reddy, a spokesman for the opposition YSR Congress Party, accused Naidu's government of putting publicity ahead of relief and disputed its accounting of crop losses. The state government has said a preliminary assessment will be followed by a fuller report before compensation is fixed.

Manorama Mohanty, director of the IMD's Bhubaneswar centre, said the system "has crossed the coast and is completely over land". Forecasters expected it to keep moving north-north-west at about 7 km/h and to weaken into a deep depression, and kept a red warning for heavy rain over Ganjam, Gajapati, Rayagada, Koraput, Malkangiri and Nabarangpur in Odisha. A flash-flood warning covered 13 Andhra districts until 5.30 am on Thursday, and heavy rain was forecast over parts of West Bengal until October 31.

Naidu said families whose houses were flooded would receive 25 kg of rice, fishermen and weavers 50 kg, and every affected person 1,000 rupees from Thursday, with 500,000 rupees for the family of each person killed. He is due to tour Ambedkar Konaseema and West Godavari on Thursday afternoon, and a virtual cabinet meeting the same day will take the final decision on relief. The IMD said a fresh low-pressure area was likely to form over the south Andaman Sea within 24 hours.