Hundreds Missing After Cyclone Hits

A cyclone battered fishing villages on Pakistan’s southern coast, whipping the region with 170-mph winds and causing tidal waves that deluged thousands of homes. Hundreds of people were reported missing. It was too early to tell whether the missing had sought shelter elsewhere or had drowned, emergency workers said. Many were presumed dead. As residents slept, the cyclone tore into the Arabian Sea coast near Gharo, 25 miles east of Karachi, causing a swath of damage from Gharo about 50 miles east toward the Indian border. In Keti Bandar, a fishing village 25 miles southeast of Gharo where many mud homes were pulverized, residents clung to each other amid a mess of debris and water. Some sat knee-deep in mud where their homes once stood, seemingly unable to move. Others gathered their belongings and slogged through the waste to reach higher ground.