ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will evacuate around 100,000 people as part of its efforts to ensure the safety of those living in the country's coastal area as cyclone Biparjoy is intensifying, according to National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chairman Inam Haider Malik.
The evacuations will be completed by early Thursday, when Biparjoy is expected to make landfall between Keti Bandar in Sindh province and Kutch in Gujarat, Xinhua news agency quoted the NDMA chairman as saying at a press conference.
Malik said the cyclone's intensity has increased and has been declared from a severe to a very severe cyclonic emergency, adding that measures are underway to control the storm's effects and weather damage.
According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), storm surges of up to 3.5 metres high are expected at the landfall point, which can inundate low-lying settlements along the coastline, reports Dawn news.
As a result, sea conditions along the coasts of Sindh and Balochistan would be extremely rough.
A PMD alert issued on Tuesday night said the cyclonic storm had moved further north/northwestward and lay just 380km south of Karachi.
The maximum speed of sustained surface winds is calculated to be between 140 and 150kmph, rising to 170kmph around the centre of the system.
Biparjoy has been categorised as a 'very severe cyclonic storm' over the northeast Arabian Sea.
Thousands of people have already been evacuated from the coastal regions of both India and Pakistan.