Cyclone Biparjoy hits India, Pakistan coast with howling gales

Howling gales and crashing waves have pounded the coastline of India and Pakistan as Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall, with more than 175,000 people fleeing the storm's predicted path.

The storm hit the coastline with winds of 125 kilometres per hour (78 miles per hour) and gusts of up to 140 km/h at 1330 GMT (6:30 pm local) on Thursday, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a bulletin.

It was forecast to maintain its current strength through to midnight, with a two-metre (six-foot) tidal surge battering low lying areas until the eye of the storm crossed the coast.

Indian forecasters have warned that Biparjoy, whose name means "disaster" in Bengali, was likely to devastate homes and tear down power lines as it barrels through the western state of Gujarat.

The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center said Biparjoy would continue moving overnight into Pakistan's Sindh province, home to the port megacity of Karachi.

'Widespread damage'

Low-lying roads started to flood in the afternoon after hours of rain, and gusting winds blew sheets of water that reduced visibility with a dull grey mist.

Almost all stores were closed, and shoppers had crowded the few that remained open to buy last-minute food and water supplies.

India's meteorologists warned of the potential for "widespread damage", including the destruction of crops, "bending or uprooting of power and communication poles" and disruption of railways and roads.

The Gujarat state government said 94,000 people had relocated from coastal and low-lying areas to shelter.

Pakistan's climate change minister Sherry Rehman said around 82,000 people had been moved from southeastern coastal areas in the face of "a cyclone the likes of which Pakistan has never experienced."

Many of the areas affected are the same inundated in last year's catastrophic monsoon floods, which put a third of Pakistan under water, damaging two million homes and killing more than 1,700 people.

"These are all results of climate change," Rehman told reporters.

Cyclones, the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the Northwest Pacific, are a regular and deadly menace on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean, where tens of millions of people live.

Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer with climate crisis.