Heavy Rains Flood Gujarat and Pakistan’s Coasts

Heavy rains battered India and Pakistan's coastal areas along the Arabian Sea, flooding cities in western India's Gujarat state and forcing thousands of people from their homes, with authorities predicting a cyclonic storm to develop.

People could be seen waded through waist-high waters that partly submerged vehicles and roads in parts of the state.

Rescue operations were underway carrying people on inflatable boats to get them to shelters and distributing bottled water and food to locals stranded in flooded neighborhoods.

"There is no electricity for the last two days," said Prabhu Ram Soni, who lives in Gujarat's coastal city of Jamnagar. "I have an eight-month-old daughter and an asthma patient, my mother, who is on oxygen support."

At least 28 people have died this week from rain-related incidents in the state, officials said, as meteorologists in India and neighboring Pakistan warned that more heavy downpours and strong winds were expected to lash the coast.

More than 18,000 have been evacuated from cities near the coast, disaster management authorities said.

A deep depression off Gujarat is expected to intensify into a cyclonic storm, the India Meteorological Department said, but it was forecast to move away from the Indian coast over the next two days.

In neighboring Pakistan, the weather department has advised fishermen to avoid venturing into the sea. Flash floods triggered by rain have already caused power outages in Karachi. Authorities in Pakistan have also issued flash flood warnings for two districts in Sindh province, which is still recovering from the devastating floods of 2022 that submerged large parts of the country and severely impacted the economy.

Heavy rains also lashed Jamnagar, home to the world's largest oil refinery complex, owned by Reliance.