Rain, Karachi, and a wet future

The rain that had been accurately forecast for Karachi and parts of Balochistan duly arrived on Friday and chaos promptly ensued. The mercury plummeted, sweaters, where they could be found, sold out everywhere and power outages along with traffic congestion became the order of the day. Further rain is forecast for Saturday and Sunday and the much-trumpeted Karachi Food Festival has been postponed. Sadly it is also reported that six people have died in rain-related incidents, three of them motorcyclists and the fourth a man who was electrocuted having come into contact with a snapped wire. Equally sadly more deaths may be expected.

Whilst rain may not be a common event in Karachi it is a recurring natural phenomenon and has to be prepared for. There is a ‘season’ in which rain is more likely and it is for the city managers to ensure that all the utilities, particularly water and electricity, are adequately prepared. Drains and nullahs need to be cleaned and/or dredged in the pre-rain season. Rubbish cleared. Electricity infrastructure checked. Dust shaken from live wires. Weak cabling strengthened or replaced. And does this happen? Mostly it does not and the city administrators are party to the deaths of innocent residents year after year. Equally culpable are the motorcyclists who refuse to wear helmets and then die in weather conditions that produce slick road surfaces. It is not unreasonable to assert that the majority of rain-related deaths are avoidable. Karachi Electric said their Rapid Response teams were on the case and re-energised tripped feeders restoring power for the most part.

What is of great concern is that meteorologists are warning that rains are going to become unseasonal, as in arriving at unexpected times of the year as a result of global warming. This is going to present a new set of problems and means that the city managers are going to need to be prepared for a downpour any time in the year, and not only in the seasons where they traditionally occur. They cannot say they were not warned.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2017.

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