Fears of a cyclone loom over Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi, located on the coast of the Arabian Sea.
The city had to close schools and issue weather warnings on Friday after a night of sporadic rain.
Yet amid the worries about the impending storm, Karachi has history on its side: Several tropical cyclones predicted to hit the city have ultimately missed it. And devotees of the city’s patron saint Abdullah Shah Ghazi, whose shrine is in Karachi, believe it is Ghazi and a cyclone legacy that protect Karachi.
Here’s more about Asna, the legend of Ghazi, and what science says about why Karachi actually tends to avoid cyclones.
What is Cyclone Asna?
A tropical cyclone could develop and hit Pakistan, officials warn. If that happens, it will be called Asna. A deep trough, which is a very strong low-pressure area, over the Rann of Kutch in Indian Gujarat has been slowly moving towards Pakistan.
On Friday, it is located 200 km (124 miles) from Karachi, according to a warning issued by the Pakistan Meteorological Department. This depression is expected to develop into a cyclonic storm due to favorable weather conditions, the warning added.
Some areas of Karachi received 147 mm (5.79 inches) of rain overnight on Thursday, a local weather office said. “I would like to urge Karachi residents, especially cyclists, to avoid unnecessary travel,” Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab wrote in an X-post on Thursday evening.
It has been raining for 3 days and more heavy rains are expected in the next few hours with strong winds. I would like to urge Karachi residents, especially cyclists, to avoid unnecessary movement. Stay safe everyone and in case of emergency call 1339
— Murtaza Wahab Siddiqui (@murtazawahab1) August 29, 2024
Pakistani daily Dawn quoted chief meteorologist Sardar Sarfaraz as saying that if the cyclonic storm materializes, it would be the first in the Arabian Sea in August since 1976.
What is the legend of Abdullah Shah Ghazi?
Ghazi was a Sufi Muslim saint who lived in the 8th century.
Historical accounts vary, but most agree that Ghazi was an Arab and settled in Sindh province, where Karachi is located, with his brother, Syed Misri Shah. Many believe he was born in Medina, Saudi Arabia, while some accounts suggest he came from Iraq.
He is believed to have been ambushed in the forests of Sindh hinterland and killed by his enemies. A band of his supporters buried him on a sandy hill, located in Karachi’s coastal town of Clifton.
After years of restoration, his shrine has become an architectural and spiritual attraction, drawing devotees from all over the country who travel to southern Pakistan just to seek Ghazi’s blessings.
Legend has it that once upon a time a group of fishermen in a fishing village were trapped in a cyclone. Ghazi took his bowl and filled it with water, stopping the cyclone.
Now, thousands of devotees turn to his miracles whenever a cyclone is about to hit the city, firmly believing that his presence can drive the cyclone away from the city.
Many tropical cyclones over the Arabian Sea, including Phet in 2010, Nilofar in 2014, Tauktae in 2021 and Biparjoy in 2023, have changed course instead of making landfall in Karachi.
Have cyclones hit Karachi before?
By the time they reach Karachi, the cyclones have weakened and have not yet made landfall.
However, there are other ways they have affected the city, Afia Salam, a Pakistani environmental journalist, told Beyond The Line. Salam has a master’s degree in geography from Karachi University.
A possible topographical explanation for why cyclones do not make landfall in the city could be that “Karachi is somewhat curved inward,” Salam said. However, he added, “Karachi has been hit by different aspects of these different cyclones.”
For example, in 2021, while Tauktae did not touch the ground in Karachi, dust storms and torrential rains were raging in the city. Local media reported that five people, including a woman and two children, died in incidents of roof and wall collapses due to rains and winds.
“There are different scales of severity,” Salam said. “Casualties are one thing, physical damage is another.”
He explained that Karachi, with a population of nearly 15 million, is full of “dangerous structures such as huge, wobbly billboards and crumbling buildings.” In such a city, a storm that causes infrastructure damage could be more damaging than forecasters otherwise predicted.
What does science say about why Karachi was not hit by cyclones?
While some believe in miracles, scientists have a different explanation for Karachi not being hit by cyclones so far.
Fahad Saeed, a climate scientist at the research group Climate Analytics, said: “The main reason is that the Arabian Sea is generally calm. This means that the conditions in the region are not suitable for a deep cyclone to develop.”
Storms heading towards Karachi tend to die out in the “depression” phase, before they turn into cyclones, he explained. “Depressions are normally shallow, but when they become deep, which means they go above sea level to a height of a few kilometres, then they gain more energy and become cyclones. But usually this happens during the monsoon.”
He added that easterly winds, common in this part of the Arabian Sea, also tend to sweep away any potential cyclone formation.
“At this time of the year, we have strong easterlies in the upper atmosphere. These are the winds that come from east to west and those winds pass over the Arabian Sea region and divide the formation of cyclones or the conversion of depressions into cyclones.
“Historically, only three cyclones have developed in the Arabian Sea region, but all of them have moved westward because these easterly winds push the cyclones from the eastern Arabian Sea towards the western Arabian Sea.”