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.
AFP
