Cyclone Bibarjoy has weakened after hitting the Indian coast
After lashing the Indian coast with strong winds and impressive waves, Cyclone Bibarjoy weakened early on Friday as it moved north.
In Pakistan, Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman has announced that 82,000 people have been evacuated from southeastern coastal areas.
AFP
Indian meteorologists have warned that Cyclone Biparjai, which means disaster in Bengali, is likely to destroy houses and damage power lines as it passes through the western state of Gujarat.
A “very strong typhoon” made landfall near the port of Jakao (West) on Thursday evening, and power outages began a few hours later. The Indian Meteorological Department has predicted wind gusts of 100 kmph and gustiness of 110 kmph on Friday morning.
“It will move northeastwards and weaken to become a cyclonic storm,” forecasters forecast, adding that the weather phenomenon is expected to move towards Pakistan’s Sindh province, where the major port city of Karachi can be seen.
More than 175,000 people have been evacuated as a precaution against the risk of flooding and “total destruction” of some buildings, according to forecasts.
Jayanta Bhai, a 35-year-old businessman from the Indian coastal town of Mandvi, told AFP his fears for his family’s safety on Thursday morning before the cyclone hit. “It’s the first time I’ve faced a typhoon,” said the father of three boys, aged eight to fifteen, as he leaned over his shop in his small concrete house and planned to cover himself. “It’s nature, you can’t fight it,” he admitted in the pouring rain. By afternoon, low-lying roads in Mandvi started getting flooded, where almost all shops were closed.
Abandoned dwellings
In India, 94,000 people have fled coastal and low-lying areas to seek shelter elsewhere, the Gujarat government said. In Pakistan, Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman has announced that 82,000 people have been evacuated from southeastern coastal areas.
At Zero Point, a fishing village very close to the Indian border, a few hundred thatched-roof houses are almost deserted and only feral cats and dogs still inhabit them, where a hundred fishing boats are moored at a jetty. . “We are afraid of what is coming,” Jaber Ali, 20, told AFP before the typhoon hit.
On Wednesday, Sherry Rehman told reporters that it was “a cyclone like Pakistan has never known”. Many affected areas were flooded during last year’s devastating monsoon. It submerged a third of Pakistan, damaged two million homes and killed more than 1,700 people. “Everything is a result of climate change,” says Sherry Rehman.
– “We are afraid” –
Officials expected waves to reach four meters high, threatening to inundate part of the megacity of Karachi, home to about 20 million people.
On Wednesday evening, some 200 people from the Kutch district gathered in a small, single-story health center not far from the Indian port of Jagao. Many people here are worried about the animals left on their farms.
Apothecary Tal Jethiben Lataji said around 10 men are left behind to take care of the hundreds of animals that are vital to the community’s livelihood. “We are scared, we don’t know what will happen next,” Tal Jethiben Lataji, 40, told AFP.
Cyclones occur frequently in this part of the Indian Ocean, home to tens of thousands of people. But scientists explain that these events are gaining momentum due to global warming.
One of them, Roxy Mathew Cole, a climatologist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, told AFP that cyclones are fueled by warm water, with surface temperatures 1.2 to 1.4 degrees Celsius higher in the Arabian Sea, also known as the Arabian Sea. Four decades ago. “Rapid warming of the Arabian Sea, combined with global warming, increases the heat flux from the ocean to the atmosphere and promotes more intense cyclones,” he summarized.
AFP
Did you find an error?Please let us know.
“Avid gamer. Social media geek. Proud troublemaker. Thinker. Travel fan. Problem solver.”