The monsoons seem to be more of a menace than a blessing.
KARACHI: Every year in Karachi, the monsoons seem to be more of a menace than a blessing. Though people long for it all year but when the rains do come, life becomes miserable. Of course there is a plus side to it and that is that it clears the atmosphere of dust, bacteria, pollution and so on.
The negatives, however, are quite a few. The roads and streets become like rivers and it becomes dangerous to drive. Also, many vehicles stall and have to be left in the rainwater since the fault can be fixed only by a mechanic. Furthermore, massive traffic jams occur and those who use public transport find it very difficult to get home after work.
Then there is the effect on electricity, with large sections of the city experiencing outages. Not only this, mobile phone signals are affected as well. To make matters worse, people’s lives are directly threatened by the standing rainwater because of fallen poles and wires, which leads to several cases of death by electrocution every time there is a heavy downpour. Clearly, all this suggests that we are poorly prepared for the rain. For one, the city’s drainage system is in shambles and does not work — or else, two inches of rain wouldn’t make the roads unusable.
One can only wonder whether anyone in a position of authority has thought of water-harvesting, i.e. how the rainwater can be used to collect at least some of the water in reservoirs and help play a role in easing the city’s chronic water shortage. The KESC needs to get its act together and fix its distribution network so that wires don’t break and fall, and endanger people’s lives.
Mahvish Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, September 14th, 2011.
