According to the Kotri Barrage control room, the river discharge increased by more than 60,000 cusecs over the past 24 hours. At 6pm on Saturday, the water flow was 784,716 cusecs upstream and 760,511 cusecs downstream.
An exceptionally high flood of above 850,000 cusecs may hit Kotri in the next 24 hours. According to Chief Engineer of Kotri Barrage Manzoor Sheikh, the barrage is designed to withstand a discharge of 875,000 cusecs. All 44 gates of the barrage are currently open to allow the raging torrents head further downstream.
A senior official said that one of the three telemetry sensors in the upstream section of the barrage had been submerged and was no longer working. Another sensor located at the downstream section of the barrage had also stopped functioning. However, a Wapda unit, which controls the telemetry system at the barrage, was continuing to gather the data through its two other sensors on the upstream section and one in the downstream section. The data was being streamed to the Wapda headquarters in Lahore.
Interestingly, operators at the Kotri control room said that they do not use the telemetry data at all. “We rely on manual calculations and inspections of water gauges and gates by our own personnel,” a control room official said. Members of the Wapda unit said it was unfortunate that despite the fact that a multi-million-dollar automated telemetry system bought from Seimens was in place at barrages, irrigation department officials make little or no use of it.
Also, Corps Commander Sindh Shahid Iqbal paid a visit to Hyderabad earlier in the day and assessed the situation himself at a section of the protection wall in Qasimabad. Pakistan Army, Rangers and police personnel are manning the protection walls that run on the edges of the city’s Qasimabad and Latifabad areas. A high ranking army officer at the Kotri Barrage, who did not wish to be named, said his men were there “only to monitor and deal with situations that spiral out of control.”
Chief Minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah also arrived in Hyderabad late in the evening and was expected to visit the embankments on Sunday.
Chaotic scenes were witnessed near Hyderabad’s Latifabad area unit 10, where five villages, including Goth Bachal Leghari, Nana Paattay, Punjabi, Baker Hussain and Fazal Leghari with a population of more than 3,000 people, had been submerged. Allah Wadaya from Bachal Leghari Goth complained that his sons had been picked up by the police, when his family refused to abandon their illegally-built home in the kachcha area. “We thought the water wasn’t as dangerous as the authorities claimed, so we resisted their attempts to evict us till the very last minute,” Wadaya said.
Badar Ali and his wife on the opposite side of the city in Qasimabad too had waited till the last minute before leaving their home. Ali says that he was roused from deep sleep in his hut in Sehrish Nagar and all he could do in the face of the rushing flood waters was to jump on top of the protective wall.
Meanwhile, president of the Awami Tehrik Ayaz Latif Palijo led a large rally of his supporters at Sehrish Nagar in the backdrop of slogans, “Jagia Jagia, Sindhi Jagia” (Wake up, Wake up, Sindhis Wake up) and “Bandh Bachao, Sindh Bachao” (Save the flood barriers, Save Sindh). He addressed his supporters and said if the irrigation department cannot do its job, then his supporters themselves would strengthen the protective embankments. Criticising the government for its inaction, he said that it had done nothing to strengthen the dykes, which according to him, if breached would inundate the entire Hyderabad city.
At least 10 more villages were submerged in Kotri’s Khanpur area, including Abdullah Shoro, Qazi Maula, Allah Bachaiyo Mallah, Barrari Shoro, Waryam Jhanro and Khameso Shoro. People have been shifted to safer places in the main city, officials said, adding that Kotri city in Jamshoro district was safe from flood waters.
Four other villages in Mattiari district’s Saeedabad area near the Bhanot embankment were submerged. They include Safar Leghari and Somachi.
The situation in Thatta also remained critical with settlements in Surjani and Monaki reportedly inundated.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 22nd, 2010.
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