KARACHI: A public holiday was announced in the port city of Karachi today, Friday, as a cyclone built up in the Arabian Sea, but a senior weather official said it had drifted away from the Pakistani coast and only moderate rains were expected in Sindh province.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department had earlier warned that a cyclonic storm could develop along the Sindh-Makran coast and result in heavy rains on Friday and Saturday.

Cyclone Gulab, a low-pressure area, emerged in the Arabian Sea before the monsoon’s withdrawal and started gaining strength on Thursday, concentrating into a depression. It intensified into cyclonic storm Shaheen on Friday, according to the Weather Channel, which said the cyclone would continue to move west-northwest wards across the North Arabian Sea and was likely to skirt along the coasts of Pakistan and Iran and move toward the Gulf of Oman.

“Cyclone Shaheen existed some 280 kilometers southwest of Karachi and [is] moving toward Oman,” PMD Karachi Director Sardar Sarfaraz told Arab News. “It may now result in light rains along the Sindh coast, including in Karachi, and heavy rains in Balochistan.”

Dad Karim, a fisherman in Balochistan province’s Gwadar coastal district, said fisherfolk were in a state of fear and had been informed that a storm could hit them Friday night and carry on into Saturday morning.

“Gwadar and Pasni are the most vulnerable areas and we have no arrangements,” he said. “We can just pray that it doesn’t touch our coast.”

PMD’s Sarfaraz said it was now unlikely the cyclone would hit Pasni.

Muhammad Bux, a fisherfolk leader in Karachi’s Rehri Goth coastal neighborhood, said hundreds of fishermen who had left for sea several days ago were still in deep waters.

“In the 1999 storm, many fishermen had gone missing,” Bux said, referring to a deadly cyclone in Pakistan in which at least 6,000 people went missing and were believed to be dead. “We are worried about their lives.”

Earlier this week, the Met office had warned of wind-thunderstorms in Karachi and other coastal cities in the Sindh province. It also issued a cyclone alert saying torrential rains could trigger urban flooding in Karachi and other cities in the south of Sindh, and windstorms could damage vulnerable structures.