After a cyclone hit the Odisha coast, the news showed tin roofs torn off houses

Why

Lokesh is correct that weak fixing makes things worse — well-anchored roofs survive storms that rip loose ones away. But his main claim, that sideways wind can't lift anything, doesn't hold. Fast-moving air exerts less pressure than still air. During a cyclone, wind races across the top of the roof, so the air pressure just above the roof drops. Inside the house the air is nearly still, so it keeps pressing up on the underside of the roof with ordinary pressure. More push from below than from above means a net upward force — and over the whole area of a roof, that can be big enough to tear it off. Test: hold a strip of paper just below your lower lip so that it droops, then blow hard across the top of it — the paper rises, even though you blew sideways, not upward. Anusha is right: fast wind over a roof lowers the pressure above it, and the higher pressure below can push the roof up and away.