Ten villages flooded as Phailin nears landfall in India [UPDATE] NEW DELHI, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Ten villages in the coastal areas of eastern India were underwater Saturday, even before massive Typhoon Phailin made landfall, officials said. Phailin was expected to make landfall about 11 a.m. EDT in Gopalpur, but winds as high as 93 mph were already pummeling the city, the Hindustan Times reported. An estimated 470,000 people have been evacuated from Orissa state, and about 700 railway passengers stranded by the storm took refuge in a railway station in the coastal town of Puri, where winds of 75 mph have been measured. Three people died after trees uprooted by the winds and heavy rains fell on them. Eighteen fishermen who went to sea two days ago have been rescued by the Indian Coast Guard. Officials warned all boats not to leave port as the typhoon approached. Phailin is a powerful storm that has been compared to Hurricane Katrina. It is expected to make landfall in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh states with winds as high as 136 mph, the BBC reported. A similarly powerful storm hit Orissa in 1999, killing more than 10,000 people, but officials say they are better prepared this time. Phailin is expected to cause a 10-foot storm surge that officials say could cause "extensive damage" to mud houses on the coast. Anyone in mud and thatched houses in the coastal areas is under mandatory evacuation orders, said Surya Narayan Patra, Orissa's disaster management minister. The army is on standby for emergency operation, and food packages are ready to be dropped into storm-affected areas by helicopter. The U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii predicts the cyclone will have sustained winds of as high as 167 mph, making it the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane. Gusts could be as strong as 196 mph. Ryan Bell of the private weather firm Weather Bell said Phailin was a "critically dangerous situation with a rare Category d5 landfall," the Hindustan Times reported. Phailin is about the size of Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, and has the wind power of Hurricane Andrew, which devastated southern Florida in 1992.