KARACHI, 24 September 2006— A storm brewing over the northern Arabian Sea is likely to gain strength and hit coastal areas of Pakistan and India packing high winds and dropping heavy rains, media reports said.
Authorities in Pakistan’s Thatta and Badin cities have declared high alerts and closed the flow of water in irrigation canals as precautionary measures.
State-run television PTV quoted meteorologists predicting waves of up to 4.5 meters high and winds of more than 70 kilometers per hour lashing the area, accompanied by heavy rains. Fishing boats out to sea have been recalled, the PTV said.
A warning was also sounded along the coastal areas of India’s western Gujarat state after the Indian Meteorological Department tracked the cyclonic circulation to an area 280 kilometers southwest of the coastal city of Porbandar.
State agencies, fishermen and people were alerted as weather officials said the cyclonic development would intensify further and bring widespread rains accompanied with winds reaching up to 100 kilometers per hour by today.
Shaukat Ali Awan of the Lahore Meteorological Department said the city of Karachi was 540 kilometers from the cyclone’s path and there was possibility of the storm changing its course. He said it was a category 4 storm in terms of intensity and was a tropical cyclone.
Awan said satellite images showed dense clouds over Sindh’s coastal areas, especially Thatta, Badin and Mithi, which may cause heavy rains in the next 24 hours.
He said cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea were common during June to November. Authorities in other Sindh cities have also taken measures to cope with any emergency, another official said.
Bangladesh Storm Toll Hits 105
Heaps of unclaimed rotting bodies dotted the southern Bangladesh coast yesterday as the death toll from the tropical storm in the Bay of Bengal climbed to 105 with the search for missing fishermen going on despite inclement weather, officials said.
Coast guard rescuers said hundreds of fishermen were still missing from Tuesday’s raging storm, which battered scores of fragile fishing hamlets on the seashore.
It is now believed that more than 1,500 fishermen were killed by violent winds that overturned their trawlers and fishing boats.
“Most bodies of the dead fishermen are in a decomposed state and are beyond recognition,” said coast guard officer Badruddoza Chowdhury.
The overnight toll of 56 dead nearly doubled to 105 after 49 more bodies were recovered from the rough waters.
Red Cross officials in southern Barguna district said about 500 fishing trawlers remained untraced for over four days after gales whipped up high walls of water which flooded several coastal districts.
The storm, triggered by a low pressure system in the bay, also dumped heavy rains on rice plains in southern Bangladesh.
Strong winds and heavy rain triggered by the storm also made around 375,000 people homeless in India and Bangladesh over the past four days, officials said. Life across Bangladesh, especially in the capital Dhaka, remained largely paralyzed with roads knee-deep high with water, witnesses said.
