If families living along the coast of lower Sindh - Thatta and Badin - refuse to evacuate by Wednesday evening, they will be forced to leave the area before Cyclone Nilofar makes its presence known.
"We do not want people to panic right now," said an official from Badin's administration. "We will, however, force them to move to camps if they do not cooperate with us."
As word and wind about Nilofar is gushing through the province, people in lower Sindh are afraid of what will happen when the cyclone reaches Pakistan.
The province's coastal districts have experienced cyclones before and have been damaged by a few since 1999. Several residents are still suffering from the impact and destruction brought on by the previous ones.
Despite warnings issued by the Pakistan Meteorological Department and Sindh Home Department regarding evacuation, none of the families in the area have budged.
Three of Badin's Union Councils (UCs), including Kadhan, Bugra Memon and Ahmed Rajo, have been declared as most sensitive and the district government has asked residents to leave their villages by Wednesday morning.
"There are a few things that are still unclear," said the additional deputy commissioner of Badin, Attaullah Shah. "We are waiting for final orders from the top."
Shah said that nearly 100 camps had been set up and they had imposed Section 144 in the coastal areas. "We don't want to panic anyone," he said, explaining why more than 100 families living near the sea had not been shifted yet.
"Our people have been living in fear for the last three days," said Muhammad Achar from the Golo Mandhro village, which was completely destroyed during the cyclone in 1999. "We fear that it might be worse than what happened in 1999." He added that the villagers will move to Badin and other adjacent areas once the administration receives information about the severity of the cyclone.
On the other hand, 135 villages in the Thatta district were declared most vulnerable. An evacuation warning was issued to 33 villages of taluka Mirpur Sakro, 44 villages in taluka Gorabari and 58 villages in Ketti Bunder.
According to the district government, nearly 13,787 people from Mirpursakro, 22,000 residents from Gorabari and approximately 13,754 people from Ketti Bunder will be displaced. An official from the district government said that a tent city will have to be established for them.
While several meteorologists are certain that the cyclone will not hit Pakistan directly, they believe that some parts of Balochistan and lower Sindh will be in the periphery of the tropical storm.
"It will hit Gujrat, India, directly," said the director of the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre, Abdul Qayoom Bhutto. "But heavy rains are expected in coastal areas, including in Karachi." He added that those areas of Sindh near the Indian borders will also be affected by heavy rains.
According to Bhutto, the present condition indicates it is a severe tropical cyclone and will increase in intensity by Wednesday night.
Due to severity of the cyclone, the provincial home department has directed officials to immediately shift residents of the area to safer places. Most people living in the coastal areas live in huts and fear that if they are not shifted to camps, they might have to face a lot of death and destruction.
At a meeting with the city’s commissioner, the director general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Salman Shah, said that billboards all over the city would also be removed before the cyclone heads towards the city.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 29th, 2014.
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