Under the influence of the cyclonic storm's passage into land, moderate to heavy rainfall, accompanied by gale wind was witnessed in several coastal regions.

Mandous is all set to weaken, following the landfall, to a deep depression and later a depression on Saturday. Earlier on Friday, it had weakened from a severe cyclonic storm to a cyclonic storm.

Mandous, pronounced 'man-dous' is an Arabic word and it means treasure box and the name was reportedly picked by the United Arab Emirates.

As many as 16,000 police personnel and 1,500 Home guards have been deployed here for security, relief and rescue tasks, and a 40-member team of TN State Disaster Response Force, in addition to 12 District Disaster Response Force teams, were deployed on standby.

Hundreds of trees were uprooted and heavy rainfall continued as cyclone made its landfall...