Pakistan largely spared full force of Cyclone Biparjoy: Climate Change Minister

ISLAMABAD (AFP): Pakistan climate change minister Sherry Rehman tweeted on Friday morning that her country had been “largely spared the full force” of Cyclone Biparjoy.

But residents stayed bunkered down as more than 30 centimetres (12 inches) of rainfall was forecast for some coastal areas of Pakistan on Friday and Saturday, with storm surges of up to 2.5 metres (8 feet).

Shops were closed early on Thursday evening in Pakistan’s city of Badin and the usually bustling streets emptied as night fell.

“Everybody is immensely fearful,” 30-year-old government clerk Iqbal Mallah told AFP on Friday.

‘It’s chaos everywhere’

In the early morning, heavy winds were gusting and puddles blotched the roads, as concerns remained despite the storm proving less severe than forecast.

“Shops are closed down early, people prefer to stay at home… it’s chaos everywhere,” said Abdullah Soomro, a hotel manager in Badin.

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 change.

Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate researcher at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, said cyclones derive their energy from warm waters, and that surface temperatures in the Arabian Sea were 1.2 to 1.4 degrees Celsius warmer than four decades ago.