No human lives lost as Cyclone Biparjoy weakens, says Pakistan climate minister

Tariq Butt / Agencies

The very severe cyclonic storm (VSCS) Biparjoy weakened into a severe cyclonic storm (SCS) over the northeast Arabian Sea after crossing the Indian Gujarat coast, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) announced on Friday.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said the country “was prepared but largely spared the full force. Sindh’s coastal areas like Sujawal were inundated by high sea levels, but most people had been evacuated to safe ground.”

Sherry Rehman said “no human lives were lost” on her side of the border. “Thank God it did not directly hit the coastal areas of Pakistan,” she told broadcaster Dunya. She also thanked the coordinating agencies and authorities for a “stellar coordination effort.”

Pakistanis were especially on alert after deadly flooding last year. Wind-driven rain pelted southern coastal towns in Pakistan for a second day on Friday. The cyclone was expected to cause flash floods in the country’s south.

People in that region lined up to receive food donated by charities, aid agencies and local authorities. Pakistan will decide on Saturday whether displaced people can be allowed to go back.

“The storm is expected to weaken first to a cyclonic storm and then to a depression by this evening,” a government statement said.

Shakir Din, a fisherman in the coastal town of Badin, said his family and neighbours may soon return home.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Power, Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan, said that power distribution network was working as normal and there was no major disruption caused by the Cyclone Biparjoy in supply of electricity.

The minister was addressing a press conference along with Managing Director of National Transmission and Dispatch Company Dr Rana Jabbar.

The cyclone has landed and its severity has been decreasing gradually while supply of electricity was continue as per routine in the most of the areas, Khurram Dastgir said adding that there was no load shedding for 70 per cent domestic consumers and industry at the moment.

The Biparjoy did not affect power supply in Karachi except a disruption for four hours that was caused due to issues in supply of LNG to power generation units, he informed and added, but the issues was immediately addressed by provision of 100 mmcfd gas from the national network.

As the threat of Cyclone Biparjoy has now been reduced, all educational activities in Karachi will resume on Saturday.

Karachi’s city commissioner’s office said that the notification that was issued earlier regarding the cancellation and rescheduling of exams and other education-related activities had been recalled.

On Friday, shops and markets gradually reopened under drizzling skies and a cool ocean breeze in Thatta, a Pakistani city around 50 kilometres inland.

“So far, so good,” said 40-year-old government worker Hashim Shaikh. “We were pushed into a state of fear for the past several days, but now it seems to be over.”

In the fishing port of Keti Bandar — forecast to be hardest hit by the storm — “there was zero damage”, according to engineer Rahimullah Qureshi from the Sindh provincial irrigation department.

According to the PMD, the cyclone lay near Latitude 23.8°N & Longitude 69.4°E at a distance of 200 kilometres east-southeast of Keti Bandar, 180 km southeast of Thatta and 270 km east of Karachi with associated maximum sustained surface winds of 80-100 km/hour.

It continued that very rough sea conditions over the northeast Arabian Sea are to prevail with a wave height of 10-12 feet.

The PMD predicted that the system is likely to weaken further into a cyclonic storm (CS) and subsequently into a depression.

Outlining possible impacts, the met department said the cyclone could cause widespread rain-thunderstorms with some heavy or very heavy rainfalls accompanied by squally winds of 80-100 km/hour in Sujawal, Badin, Tharparkar, and Umerkot districts. It also predicted heavy falls in Thatta and Mirpurkhas.