Cyclone kills 18 on Pakistan coast
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tuesday June 26, 11:38 PM
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Cyclone kills 18 on Pakistan coast*
A powerful cyclone lashed Pakistan's southern coast on Tuesday, killing
at least 18 people, leaving dozens more missing and forcing tens of
thousands to flee their homes, officials said.
Cyclone Yemyin packed winds of up to 130 kilometres (80 miles) an hour
as it made landfall over the southwestern province of Baluchistan, said
Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the director general of the Pakistan
meteorological.
At least two Pakistani fishing boats were reported to have sunk in the
Arabian Sea and several more were missing with their crews, sparking a
desperate search by navy and coast guard helicopters and ships.
Yemyin barrelled in three days after another violent storm killed at
least 235 people in the southern port city of Karachi and
sparsely-populated Baluchistan.
Forecasters said a 7.6-metre (25-feet-high) storm surge was feared.
"The cyclone is likely to cause widespread destruction and coastal
flooding along the Baluchistan coast due to extremely heavy rainfall,
gale (force) winds and associated storm surge," Chaudhry said.
But he added that the cyclone's intensity had been falling.
At least 10 people, four of them children, were killed in Baluchistan,
mainly by flooded rivers in coastal areas, provincial government
spokesman Raziq Bugti said.
The figure was believed to include two Hindu pilgrims whom private
emergency services said had drowned after becoming trapped in a
rainwater drain. Another 15 pilgrims were missing.
Bodies of three fishermen were recovered from Keti Bandar, a coastal
town in southern Sindh province, fishermen association official Siraj
Khoro told AFP by telephone.
The cyclone and rain destroyed or damaged about 1,000 houses in Keti
Bandar, Shah Bandar, Jati and other areas of the coastal Thatta and
Badin districts, he said.
Hundreds of people have been shifted to camps set up in government
schools and other buildings in the area, he added.
In Karachi four people including an eight-year-old boy were electrocuted
by power lines brought down by cyclone-induced rain and winds overnight,
hospital sources said.
Police said a woman died and another woman and a girl were injured when
the wall of their house collapsed in Tuesday's rain in Karachi.
Pakistani navy and coast guard helicopters and ships rescued around 25
people from two ships stranded off the coast, but were searching for
another 30 fishermen whose boats sank, said navy spokesman commander
Salman Ali.
Another 56 were rescued later from two other stranded ships, he said.
Other boats were stranded and had asked for help, he said.
Residents said the cyclone had severed road and telephone links to the
affected coastal region, which includes the China-funded,
multi-million-dollar deep sea port of Gwadar.
Officials declared an emergency in Gwadar and shifted more than 10,000
people inland from the town's harbour and nearby areas. Thousands more
were evacuated from dozens of other coastal towns.
The Red Crescent provided 200 tents for affected areas and two trucks
loaded with relief goods, deputy provincial relief commissioner Ali Gul
Kurd said.
The meteorological office's Chaudhry said that the "worst appears to be
over" for southern Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, but
that widespread rains would continue until late Tuesday.
The cyclone moved away from Karachi overnight after coming to within 90
kilometres of the port late Monday.
Parts of the sprawling city of 12 million people however remained
without electricity or drinking water after the weekend's storm. Several
riots have broken out over the situation.
Cyclone Yemyin is the second major storm of the north Indian Ocean
cyclone season after Cyclone Gonu hit Oman, Iran and parts of southwest
Pakistan in early June, killing more than 60 people.