By Francis Mascarenhas, Sumit Khanna and Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam
MANDVI, India/KARACHI (Reuters) -Authorities in India’s western state of Gujarat evacuated more than 75,000 people from vulnerable coastal communities, with cyclone Biparjoy expected to whirl in from the Arabian Sea and make landfall by Thursday evening.
Early on Thursday, Biparjoy, which means disaster or calamity in Bengali and is classified as a very severe cyclone, was centred 170 km (106 miles) off Jakhau port in Gujarat and 260 km (162 miles) off Karachi in Pakistan, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The storm appeared to have lost some of its intensity, and is expected to have a maximum sustained wind speed of 115-125 kph (71-78 mph) gusting up to 140 kph, down from the 150 kph that the IMD had estimated on Wednesday.
There was no change in its path, however, and the cyclone was still expected to make landfall around 5.30 p.m. IST (1200 GMT) near India’s Jakhau port, between Mandvi in Gujarat and Karachi, the IMD said.
As the storm advanced toward land, windspeed rose around Jakhau, said Amit Arora, the district collector of Kutch, where the cyclone was likely to make landfall. Authorities have evacuated more than 50,000 people in Kutch.
In the coastal town of Mandvi, a Reuters witness said strong winds had uprooted some trees. There was also a slight drizzle, but shops had opened and people were out on the streets.
“On Thursday morning, wind speed as high as 90 kph were reported on Gujarat coast,” said a senior IMD official.
“The speed will rise gradually in the next few hours to 120 kph, gusting to 135 kph in the afternoon. We are expecting landfall in the evening when wind speeds would be even higher.”
Auditorium halls in schools and other government buildings were converted into relief camps to provide shelter to displaced people in both India and Pakistan.
Ships and boats have been moved from some areas of Pakistan’s coast while hospitals in the region were put on high alert as part of preparations for the cyclone.
Pakistan Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said Karachi, a port city of 20 million people, was not under immediate threat, but emergency measures were being taken to deal with winds and rain that were expected to batter the economic hub.
“There will be voluntary evacuations carrying on in the city of Karachi, which is, sort of, not directly in the eye of the storm like the coastal areas … but it is certainly going to feel the brunt of high intensity, high velocity winds, as well as rainfall,” Rehman said, as residents in Karachi stocked up on essential food and grains.
Pakistan authorities said about 62,000 people had been evacuated from high-risk areas as of Wednesday evening.
Temporary thatched houses in coastal Gujarat could be completely flattened while standing crops, plantations and roads were expected to face major damage, the IMD said in a statement, adding that railways could also face disruption.
The weather office said that the cyclone would create tidal waves of 2 to 3 metres in the Arabian Sea and could inundate low-lying areas along the coasts.
Indian authorities suspended fishing until Friday, closed down schools and banned people from using beaches.
Many offshore oil installations and major ports, which line the coasts of Gujarat, have suspended operations.
“We have evacuated more than 75,000 persons from the eight coastal districts in Gujarat that are expected to be impacted by the cyclone,” said Kamal Dayani, a senior official overseeing rescue operations.
(Reporting by Francis Mascarenhas in Mandvi, India, Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad and Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam in Karachi; additionl reporting by Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai; Writing by Sudipto Ganguly and Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Gerry Doyle)
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