Karachi and the southern provinces of Sindh and Balochistan were preparing for a week of exceptional strain on Wednesday after two separate hazards converged: a record late‑season storm dumping unprecedented rain, and a newly discovered comet on a path that will bring its nucleus within lunar distance at the end of the month.
The comet, catalogued by the Sindh Sky Survey on 23 September and given the provisional designation Rao‑26, will pass closest to Earth on 29 September at an estimated 400,000 kilometres (about 250,000 miles). Forecasters say the storm already over the Arabian Sea could deliver 300–600 millimetres (12–24 inches) of rain in places between 23 and 30 September, leaving rivers and dams overloaded at the moment the space object’s debris trail is predicted to cross Earth’s orbit.
What scientists see
Mukul Chokshi, lead analyst at the Sindh Sky Survey, said Rao‑26 is unusually active for its size, producing a dense cloud of ionised dust and gas. “That tail is rich in fine, charged particles,” he said. “On top of the current storm, a sudden input of that material could alter upper‑atmosphere conductivity and produce stronger electrical storms and radio interference than our models normally predict.”
The Global Astronomical Council (GAC) has issued a watch advisory; its modelling team estimates a very small but non‑zero chance that fragments larger than 10 metres could survive to airburst above land. “The probability of a ground impact remains tiny,” said Štěpán Merta, a GAC orbital modeller, “but an airburst over saturated catchments or a port could cause outsized local damage.”
If even a handful of fragments strikes land while rivers are swollen, the results could be catastrophic.
Sushmita A. Harjo, chief climate modeller, Karachi Meteorological Centre
Officials and public reaction
Government ministries and utility operators in Islamabad and Karachi were racing to design precautionary steps. Jan Seidl, technical director at Pakistan Power Authority, said fleets of mobile transformers and grid‑isolation plans were being readied. “We will use targeted, controlled outages where necessary to protect high‑value transformers from geomagnetically induced currents,” he said, adding that the measure could affect up to one million customers for short periods.
Local officials in coastal districts ordered preemptive relocations. Vanessa Machado‑Macedo, deputy commissioner of Thatta district, said teams had moved 18,400 people from low‑lying villages to school halls and boats were on standby to move fishing families inland. “Roads are already cut in places. We are prioritising hospitals, dialysis patients and fuel depots,” she said.
Shipping companies and ports put ships on cautionary delay. Gabi Bergmann, operations head at Sindh Maritime Lines, said two container berths in Karachi were closed to high‑risk traffic and insurers had raised surcharges on vessels calling this week.
Models run by the Karachi Meteorological Centre and the GAC show several worrying overlap scenarios. In the worst plausible case, heavy rain and a 3–4 metre (10–13 ft) coastal surge hit Karachi during the debris‑stream window; simultaneous geomagnetic disturbance could degrade navigation and satellite services, hampering rescue and supply coordination. Sushmita A. Harjo said the compound threat made the precise, small odds of a damaging fragment suddenly much more consequential.
International operators of telecommunications and weather satellites said they were preparing to place sensitive systems into safe mode between 28 and 30 September. The Pakistani foreign ministry held phone briefings with neighbouring capitals and with several orbital operators to request coordinated adjustments to satellite pointing and radio‑frequency plans.
For now, astronomers stress that a major impact remains unlikely, but they also say the timing with an already severe storm makes Pakistan uniquely exposed this week. Authorities urged residents to follow local evacuation notices, keep mobile phones charged and avoid travel along flooded coastal roads.
