Nearly 350,000 people work in call centres across India

A team of 12 fielded over 300 emergency calls for 36 hours, a spokesman for the call centre in India's western state of Gujarat told the BBC.

The call centre used information about evacuation plans and local maps provided by authorities in the US.

Millions were evacuated when the hurricane hit Texas and Louisiana.

Spokesman Nisarg Brahmbhatt said the call centre, run by Effective Teleservices, in the city of Gandhinagar took over the operations after the company's call centres in Texas closed down because of the hurricane threat.

Desperate calls for help flooded in from evacuees to the Gandhinagar centre.

"When I got the frantic call well after midnight [on Saturday], I set up the helpline in order to assist evacuees from near the Gulf of Mexico to locate to places for shelter," Jim Iyoob, the call centre director, told the AFP news agency.

Booming industry

He said he was familiar with the hurricane-affected areas because he had lived and worked in Texas.

Mr Brahmbhatt said the Gandhinagar centre had also handled about 5,000 routine business calls a day on behalf of the company's two Texas call centres which had shut.

India's booming business-process outsourcing industry is growing at a scorching rate - exports were worth $5.2bn in 2004-2005 and are expected to grow over 40% this fiscal year.