As cyclone Biparjoy is due to make landfall on Thursday evening in India's Gujarat, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued red alerts in several districts of the state.
The authorities have so far shifted 75,000 people from coastal regions, as the cyclone is expected to land in Kutch. It will cross Saurashtra and Kutch and the contiguous Pakistan coasts between Mandvi and Karachi near Jakhau Port between 16:00 and 20:00 IST (10:30 and 14:30 GMT) according to the IMD.
Approximately 62,000 people have been evacuated in Pakistan so far.
Cyclone Biparjoy was last reported to be less than 170km from the Gujarat coast.
According to the Gujarat state government, 18 teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), 12 of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), 115 teams of the state road and building department, and 397 from the state electricity department have been deployed in different coastal districts.
The Arabian Sea coast, along with Gujarat and Mumbai (Maharashtra), reported high tides on Thursday. Experts have warned that Cyclone Biparjoy - the word means "disaster" in Bengali - could destroy homes and crops.
"A storm surge of about 2 to 3 metres above the astronomical tide is likely to inundate low-lying areas of the districts that are likely to be affected because of the landfall. The tides could rise up to 3 to 6 metres in some places," the IMD has said.
As the sea surface temperature along the coast of Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea has been rising in recent years, the region has become more vulnerable to cyclonic storms.