Nearly 66,000 people living in coastal towns and small islands in Pakistan have been evacuated to safer places before Cyclone Biparjoy is expected to hit the coastline in Sindh province on Thursday, the government said on Wednesday.

Strong winds, showers and high tides heralded the arrival of Cyclone Biparjoy, which means disaster or calamity in the Bengali language.

In its fresh updates, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has said that the cyclone has moved away from Karachi and is currently at a distance of 370 kilometres south of the country’s financial capital. The cyclone was previously 340 km south of Karachi.

The cyclone moved north-northeastward during the last six hours, the department said.

“Maximum sustained surface winds are 150-160 Km/hour gusts 180 Km/hour around the system centre and sea conditions being phenomenal around the system centre with maximum wave height 30 feet,” it added.

Meanwhile, Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said on Wednesday that the cyclone, which has slightly moved away from Karachi, will hit Sindh’s Keti Bandar on Thursday morning.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, she said nearly 66,000 people have been evacuated to safer places from Sindh’s coastal areas thus far.

Pakistan has deployed the military to evacuate around 100,000 people to safe places from the low-lying coastal areas in the southern Sindh province.

“The true form of the cyclone will be known tomorrow,” Rehman said as she requested the people to cooperate with authorities.

Rehman said that commercial flight operations would be suspended as the cyclone drew closer to the country.

Classified as a “very severe cyclonic storm” of category 3, Biparjoy is expected to make landfall with winds of approximately 140-150 kilometres per hour (km/h) and gusts up to 170 km/h.

According to the latest forecast, the cyclone was expected to maintain a northward trajectory and then it was likely to re-curve eastward and make its landfall between Keti Bandar in Thatta district and India’s Gujarat coastline.

The areas likely to be affected included Thatta, Badin, Sajawal, Tharparkar, Karachi, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Hyderabad, Ormara, Tando Allahyar and Tando Mohammad Khan, according to weather experts.

Thirty-seven relief camps have been set up at different sites including government schools and colleges.

The Pakistan Navy said that troops had evacuated 700 people from various villages of Shah Bandar and 64 fishermen were rescued from the sea.

Naval emergency response and medical teams had been deployed at coastal areas of Balochistan and rural areas of Sindh including Hyderabad, Shaheed Benazirabad, Sukkur and Sanghar, while naval ships were maintaining vigilance in the open sea, it added.

The Army, Navy, Rangers and district administrations moved people to shelters and relief camps set up in schools and other government buildings.

Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) Sindh Chief Meteorologist Sardar Sarfaraz told Geo News that the storm’s intensity had decreased somewhat.

“There is no dangerous situation in Karachi, the cyclone will exit from the city’s south,” he said.

He said that the storm was heading toward the north.

“It will then move north-east, where it will hit or pass Keti Bandar and India’s Gujarat,” he said, commenting on the cyclone’s trajectory.

Earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who chaired a meeting to review the preparedness ahead of the possible impact of the cyclone, directed the Sindh government, the National Disaster Management Authority and other relevant organisations to utilise all-out resources to protect the people.

The prime minister also ordered the setting up of mobile hospitals in the coastal areas to ensure adequate emergency medical assistance there. He also ordered for provision of clean drinking water and food at the camps.

The prime minister instructed Power Minister Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan to ensure his presence in the districts of southern Sindh until the effects of the cyclone were over, to monitor the 24-hour power transmission system in the coastal areas.

He said that the possible damage to the power transmission system after the cyclone should be repaired immediately. He also set up a committee to deal with the emergency.

Pakistan is still recovering from losses caused by unprecedented floods last year in which more than 1,700 people were killed, and over 33 million people were affected.