Fishermen tie their boat along the shore before leaving for a safer place at Donkuru village in Srikakulam district, in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Rain and wind lashed India's east coast on Saturday, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee to storm shelters as cyclone Phailin closed in, threatening to cut a wide swath of devastation through farmland and fishing hamlets

Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters