Media cover :Telegraph on AILA

Calcutta, May 26: Aila has withered away but not before the beast worked its way up the spine of Bengal and wreaked havoc till the tip of the state in Darjeeling.

By 5.30pm today, all that was left of the remnant of the cyclone was a low-pressure formation in a trough over north Bengal. A low-pressure formation can cause scattered rain, not widespread destruction like a cyclone.

But before Aila transformed itself into a far less potent form, it had killed at least 82 people and rendered lakhs homeless. Aila’s trail bound the south Bengal coast to the northern hills in a serpentine ribbon of destruction with as many as 20 deaths reported in Darjeeling in landslides triggered by the cyclone.