India's weather office said a deep depression had formed over
land and was likely to intensify into a cyclonic storm by Friday
evening, moving north-westwards over the Arabian Sea in the next
two days.
Schools in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi and parts of Kutch
district in India's Gujarat were shut, officials said, as heavy
rain lashed both places.
A cyclonic storm during August is a rare occurrence with this
one being the first in decades, data from India's weather office
showed.
"Cyclone formation generally takes place over sea and then it
moves over to land. This type of system is unusual because it
formed over land and is now moving towards the sea," Ashok Kumar
Das, head of the Indian Meteorological Department in Ahmedabad,
Gujarat, told Reuters.
Three more people died in Gujarat overnight from rain-related
incidents, taking the toll to 31 this week, and authorities
evacuated more than 8,700 people from ten districts in the state
over the last 24 hours, officials said.
"There is severe water logging in several places in Kutch
district due to heavy rains over the last couple of days. We
evacuated people from coastal areas and shifted them to schools
and other facilities," district collector of the Kutch district,
Amit Arora, said.
Both Das and Arora said the effect of the cyclonic storm was
likely to lessen in Gujarat as the storm moves from land to sea.
"Wind speeds have fallen to 40-50 kmph," Arora said.
In neighbouring Pakistan, authorities warned of urban flooding
and flash floods in rural areas due to the heavy rain, and urged
citizens to stay indoors.
Both countries warned fishermen against venturing out into the
sea.
Parts of Karachi received 147 mm (5.79 inches) of rain
overnight, the local weather office said. The city's mayor,
Murtaza Wahab, in a post on X, urged residents to avoid
"unnecessary movement".
(Reporting by Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam in Karachi, Asif Shahzad
in Islamabad and Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad; Additional reporting
by Rajendra Jadhav, writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by
Raju Gopalakrishnan and Christina Fincher)
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