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CALCUTTA, Friday (AFP) At least 17 people died and hundreds of others were injured or left homeless when a tropical storm hammered eastern India and Bangladesh, officials and media reports.

Winds of 87 kilometers (54 miles) per hour tore through Calcutta and areas south of the Indian metropolis for five minutes late Wednesday, bringing heavy rain with them, said Rajendranath Goldar, deputy director of the weather office here.

More than 200 mud huts were flattened in the south of West Bengal state, of which Calcutta is the capital, leaving hundreds homeless, said Chayan Mukherjee, the province's police inspector general.

He told AFP at least 10 people died and more than 150 were injured across the Indian state. The dead included four people who were crushed in a Hindu temple when a banyan tree collapsed on it in Nabadwip, a pilgrimage center to the god Krishna about 200 kilometers (125 miles) northeast of Calcutta. Eight others were seriously injured at the temple, Mukherjee said.

A woman also died and her husband was missing after their ferry capsized in a river off the village of Burul on the coast of the Bay of Bengal, he said.

In Bangladesh, at least seven people died and nearly 300 were injured in the storm, according to media reports.

The hardest hit district was Dinajpur on the northwestern border with India, where three people, including a three-year-old boy, were killed and 150 injured, the mass-circulation Daily Jugantor said.

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