KARACHI, 26 June 2007 — Authorities evacuated thousands of people from southern coastal areas yesterday ahead of a possible cyclone, two days after a storm killed at least 235 people in the port city of Karachi, officials said.
The Meteorological Department issued an alert saying that a tropical storm forming in the Arabian Sea 150 kilometers south of Karachi was likely to intensify into a cyclone.
The new storm was expected to bring strong winds with “heavy to very heavy rainfall” in Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, and neighboring Balochistan province, it said on its website.
Sindh chief minister’s adviser Waseem Akhtar said army’s help has been sought to cope with any emergency if the cyclone hits coastal areas. Policemen have been deployed on the beaches to prevent picnickers from going to the sea. There will be high tides during the next three days and visitors to Clifton, Hawkesbay, Sandspit, Henry and Gadani beaches have been warned to remain away from the sea, Akhtar said.
Fishermen were advised to stay ashore until Thursday in some areas because of the likelihood of “extremely” rough seas. At least 10 fishermen have been missing since the weekend, officials said.
“It is likely to pass very close to Karachi and it can cause heavy rain. Even small rains cause destruction so naturally it can cause losses,” Meteorological Department Director Qamaruz Zaman told AFP.
Officials in Balochistan said around 2,000 people had been evacuated to higher ground from areas along the Arabian Sea coast that were already inundated by the rain. Karachi is still reeling from a deadly thunderstorm on Saturday, with parts of the sprawling port city of 12 million people still without electricity or drinking water. The shortages have led to several riots.
Provincial Health Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed said that 228 people had been killed by the weekend’s bad weather and another 200 injured, mostly in the suburbs of the city. Seven others were killed in Balochistan, officials said.
Workers were clearing fallen trees and the wreckage of nearly 50 huge iron advertising billboards that collapsed during the thunderstorms, causing several of the casualties. Most of the deaths were caused when the roofs and walls of shanty homes collapsed.
Relief camps have been set up in the badly affected Karachi slum area of Gadap Town where more than 1,000 shanty homes were destroyed, while two truckloads of aid have been dispatched, city officials said.
President Pervez Musharraf ordered local authorities to take “immediate steps to tackle the situation,” state media reported. Karachi Mayor Mustafa Kamal said a major relief operation was under way. Some Karachi residents said they were forced to sleep in the open despite promises from municipal authorities to shift them to schools and private buildings.
“We are living in the open because we have lost our house and no one has provided us any shelter,” said laborer Ghulam Rasool, 35.
The deputy mayor of Gadap Town, Abdus Sattar Brohi, said people were still waiting for the authorities to help. “People are paying from their own pockets to provide food to their neighbors in distress,” Brohi told AFP.
