Roofs were blown off houses and trees and electric poles uprooted in several parts of India's western state of Gujarat as a severe cyclone made landfall overnight and heavy rain continued to lash the coast.

A man and his son were reported killed in Gujarat on Friday, after they attempted to save their livestock. It was unclear if they died from drowning or were killed by falling debris.

More than 180,000 people were evacuated in India and Pakistan in the last few days as authorities braced for the cyclone, named Biparjoy, to hit coasts in both countries.

Biparjoy, which means 'disaster' or 'calamity' in the Bengali language, made landfall near Jakhau, a port in Gujarat that is close to the border with Pakistan, weather officials said.

India's weather department warned of heavy to very heavy rainfall in Gujarat and the neighbouring state of Rajasthan through Friday.

Pakistan's weather department said moderate to heavy rain was expected in the Hyderabad, Nooriabad and Thatta regions.

Biparjoy weakened after hitting land with a wind speed of 105 km per hour (65.24 miles per hour) to 115 kmph (136.7 mph) Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general at the India Meteorological Department said on Friday.

Local television showed visuals of uprooted trees, people sheltering against strong winds and debris lying on roads in the aftermath of the cyclone.

Biparjoy was classified as a category one storm, the least severe on a scale of one to five.

'Widespread damage'

Low-lying roads started to flood on Thursday afternoon after hours of rain.

Gusting winds blew sheets of water that reduced visibility with a dull grey mist.

Almost all stores were closed, and shoppers had crowded the few that remained open to buy last-minute food and water supplies.

India's meteorologists warned of the potential for "widespread damage", including the destruction of crops, "bending or uprooting of power and communication poles" and disruption of railways and roads.

The Gujarat state government said 94,000 people had relocated from coastal and low-lying areas to shelter.

Pakistan's Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said around 82,000 people had been moved from southeastern coastal areas in the face of "a cyclone the likes of which Pakistan has never experienced."

Many of the areas affected are the same inundated in last year's catastrophic monsoon floods, which put a third of Pakistan under water, damaging two million homes and killing more than 1,700 people.

"These are all results of climate change," Rehman told reporters.

Storm surges were expected to reach four metres (13 feet), with flooding possible in Karachi - home to about 20 million people.

In the largely abandoned fishing town of Zero Point - so-called because of its proximity to the Indian border - 20-year-old Jaffer Ali said residents "are afraid of what is coming."

The shanty settlement of hundreds of thatched homes was populated mainly by stray cats and wild dogs, with at least a hundred idle fishing boats tethered to a long pier running out to the ocean.

"Our worst fears are that it will come in the evening or later tonight," Ali told AFP news agency.

'Terrified'

About 200 people huddled together in a single-storey health centre in Kutch district, a short distance from India's Jakhau port, late on Wednesday.

Many were worried about their farm animals, which they had left behind.

Cyclones - the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the Northwest Pacific - are a regular and deadly menace on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean, where tens of millions of people live.

Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer with climate change.