Daily Times

The Sindh government on Monday announced evacuations across the province as the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) said Biparjoy, now classified as an “extremely severe cyclonic storm”, was making its way across the Arabian Sea towards the coastlines of Pakistan and India, a private TV channel reported.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said an emergency had been declared and the army drafted in to help relocate “more than 80,000 people” at risk. “We will not request people but demand them to evacuate,” he told reporters, adding that the order was being issued through social media, mosques and radio stations.

Shah further said that the district administration and Pakistan Navy had evacuated nearly 500 villagers in Thatta and evacuation was underway for the remaining 1500 villagers.

Separately, a spokesman for the chief minister said that around 2,000 people had already been evacuated to “safe places” from the area of Shah Bandar, a fishing town nestled among mangrove deltas 45km (28 miles) west of India’s Gujarat state.

The Defence Housing Authority (DHA) in Karachi recommended “voluntary evacuation” for citizens residing in the Darakhshan and Seaview areas from June 13 till the “situation gets settled”. The evacuations came as the PMD said the cyclone had “moved further north-northwestward during last 12 hours” and now lies near Latitude 19.9°N and Longitude 67.3°E at a distance of about 550km south of Karachi, 530km south of Thatta and 650km southeast of Ormara. The Met department said the system was “most likely to track further northward until June 14 morning”. It added that the cyclone would then recurve northeastward and cross between Keti Bandar (southeast Sindh) and the Indian Gujrat coast on June 15 as a “very severe cyclonic storm”.

The PMD said the cyclone’s maximum sustained surface winds were 140-150km per hour while gusts as high as 170km/h were around the system centre. Sea conditions were “phenomenal around the system centre with maximum wave height 35-40 feet”, it added. “The favourable environmental conditions … are supporting the system to maintain its intensity,” the PMD said. The department added that its cyclone warning centre in Karachi was continuously monitoring the system and would issue updates accordingly. In its alert, the PMD cited the system’s approach towards the southeast Sindh coast and warned citizens that “widespread wind-dust/thunderstorm rain with some very heavy/extremely heavy falls accompanied with squally winds of 80-100km/hour” were likely in Thatta, Sujawal, Badin, Tharparker and Umerkot districts from June 13-17.

It further said that “dust/thunderstorm-rain with few heavy falls and accompanied with squally winds of 60-80km/h” were likely in Karachi, Hyderabad, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Allayar, Shaheed Benazirabad and Sanghar districts from June 14 to 16. “Squally (high-intensity) winds may cause damage to loose & vulnerable structures (kutcha houses), including solar panels, etc,” the department said. A storm surge of 3-3.5 metres was expected when the cyclone made landfall which could inundate low-lying settlements, it highlighted. The PMD advised fishermen to not venture out into the open sea “till the system is over by June 17 as the Arabian Sea conditions may get very rough/high accompanied with high tides along the coast”.