More than 100,000 people have been evacuated in India and Pakistan ahead of the expected landfall on Thursday of a “very severe cyclonic storm”.
Biparjoy, a cyclone whose name means “disaster” in Bengali, is making its way across the Arabian Sea and is expected to make landfall on Thursday evening, government weather monitors said.
Powerful winds, storm surges and lashing rains were forecast to hammer a 325km (200-mile) stretch of coast between Mandvi in India’s Gujarat state and Karachi in Pakistan.
“Over 47,000 people have been evacuated from coastal and low-lying areas to shelter,” said C C Patel, an official in charge of relief operations in Gujarat.
Pakistan’s climate change minister, Sherry Rehman, said on Wednesday that 62,000 people had been evacuated from the country’s south-eastern coast, with 75 relief camps set up at schools and colleges.
She said fishers had been warned to stay off the water and small aircraft were grounded, while flooding was possible in the megacity of Karachi, home to about 20 million people.
“We are following a policy of caution rather than wait and see,” she told reporters in Islamabad. “Our first priority is saving lives.”
India’s Meteorological Department predicted the storm would hit near the Indian port of Jakhau late on Thursday, and warned of the “total destruction” of traditional mud and straw thatched homes.
At sea, winds were already gusting at speeds up to 180km/h (112mph), and gales were already hitting the usually bustling Jakhau port, where more than 30 large fishing boats have been dragged up on to the shore.
Wind speeds are predicted to reach 125-135 km/h, with gusts of up to 150 km/h, by the time it makes landfall.
India’s meteorologists warned of the potential for “widespread damage” including the destruction of crops, “bending or uprooting of power and communication poles” and disruption of railways and roads.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department forecast gusts of up to 140km/h in the south-eastern province of Sindh, accompanied by a storm surge reaching 3.5 metres (11.5ft).
Evacuees gathered at a temporary shelter at a school in Sindh’s Badin district. Local, Wilayat Bibi worried her fishing family would be doomed even after the storm passes.
“Our concern is when the cyclone is over, how will we feed our children?” the 80-year-old asked. “If our boats are gone, if our huts are also gone – we will be languishing with no resources,” she said.
Cyclones – the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the north-west Pacific – are a regular and deadly menace on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean, where tens of millions of people live.
Human-caused climate change has increased the occurrence of the most intense and destructive tropical cyclones, though the overall number a year has not changed globally. This is because warming oceans provide more energy, producing stronger storms.
Extreme rainfall from tropical cyclones has increased substantially, as warmer air holds more water vapour. Coastal storm surges are also higher and more damaging due to the sea level rise driven by climate change. For example, the devastating storm surge from Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013, was about 20% higher due to human-caused climate change.
With Agence France-Presse
