With the cyclone barreling towards the Gujarat coast, parts of the Saurashtra-Kutch region received heavy rains accompanied by strong winds, the Met department said on Wednesday. The cyclone is expected to make landfall on Thursday evening as a "very severe cyclonic storm" with maximum wind speed reaching up to 150 kilometres per hour, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. 

 In the 24 hours ending Wednesday morning, Khambhaliya taluka of Devbhumi Dwarka district received the highest 121 mm of rainfall, followed by Dwarka (92 mm) and Kalyanpur (70 mm) during this period, the State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) said in a release. 

 More than nine talukas in Jamnagar, Junagadh, Rajkot, Porbandar and Kutch districts received more than 50 mm of rainfall in the same period, it said. According to SEOC, 54 talukas across the districts of Saurashtra and Kutch received more than 10 mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours till Wednesday morning.

 "The cyclone is nearly 290 km away from Kutch at present. As a precautionary measure, we have already shifted nearly 50,000 people living in coastal areas to temporary shelters. The evacuation process is still on and the remaining 5,000 persons will be shifted by this evening to safer places," said State Commissioner of Relief, Alok Kumar Pandey. 

 Of the 50,000-odd evacuees, nearly 18,000 people were shifted to shelters in Kutch district while others were evacuated from Junagadh, Jamnagar, Porbandar, Devbhumi Dwarka, Morbi and Rajkot, Pandey told reporters in Gandhinagar. -- PTI