By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam
KARACHI (Reuters) – Heavy rains and stormy winds forced authorities in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, to close schools on Friday, after a deep depression in the Arabian Sea that the weather office says could develop into a cyclonic storm.
Parts of Karachi received 147 mm (5.79 inches) of rain overnight, the local weather office said, and the city’s mayor, Murtaza Wahab, in a post on X, asked residents to avoid “unnecessary movement”.
The deep depression which is off the Rann of Kutch in India’s Gujarat, is expected to intensify into a cyclonic storm on Friday, India’s weather office said, adding that it would move north-west over the Arabian Sea in the next two days.
Authorities in Pakistan asked fishermen and sailors not to venture out to sea, and warned that the storm is likely to result in flooding in cities as well as flash floods in hilly areas in coming days.
More than 28 people died and around 18,000 have been evacuated since Sunday from cities near the Gujarat coast, disaster management authorities said on Thursday, even as more rain was expected in the state as the cyclonic storm builds up.
The formation of a cyclonic storm over the Arabian Sea in August was a rare occurrence, the Indian Express newspaper reported, saying the last such storm was in 1964.
(Reporting by Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam in Karachi, Asif Shahzad in Islamabd, writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
