Karachi’s eight underpasses underwater

Sections of Sadequain (Golimar) Underpass cave in on artist’s 87th birthday

KARACHI: Three days of rainfall brought the city to a halt, as all eight underpasses of the city were closed for several hours on Friday. The underpasses were all inundated with water.

The situation was under control until Thursday evening, as the rainfall was moderate. However, after the sunset the rain began to pour and the citizens’ miseries intensified.

After heavy downpours on Thursday night, the underpasses were flooded as there was no way to drain out the water.



The worst hit was the recently inaugurated Golimar Underpass. Constructed at a cost of Rs450.73 million and named after artist Sadequain, the underpass was inundated with water on Friday, what would have been Sadequain’s 87th birthday, exposing the use of substandard material and poor engineering. Sections of the ill-fated underpass and its side roads caved in.

Many cars were stuck in the water that accumulated in the Liaquatabad Underpass on Friday morning. PHOTO: ATHAR KHAN/EXPRESS

Muhammad Amin, chairperson of the Gulbahar Traders Association, told The Express Tribune that the market opened on Friday, after the Eid holidays, and everyone was shocked to see the state of the underpass. He said that not only the underpass, but the roads adjacent to it were also made with substandard material, as several potholes emerged on the road inside the underpass as well as the road outside.

A resident of the area, Anum Khaleeq, told The Express Tribune that having heard from her neighbour that the underpass had been inundated with water, she chose to take an alternative route to work. She said there was no official outside the underpass to stop people from entering it.



The inundation of the Golimar Underpass was not an isolated incident, as all of Karachi’s underpasses were flooded with rainwater and these included the underpasses in Nazimabad, Liaquatabad No 10 and Gharibabad.

Another commuter, Muhammad Hassan, stood on the side of the road, drying out the sparkplugs of his motorcycle and shared that in the morning, when he left his house to head towards the private hospital on Stadium Road where he works, he got stuck in the water accumulated in the Liaquatabad Underpass.

He explained that since there was not enough light at the time, as the sun had not risen and the underpass lights had been turned off, he mistook the level of water and drove in. Upon entering the underpass he saw that there were three or four cars already stuck in the water

He decided to turn around and had to push his motorcycle out, as it would not start.

The Gharibabad Underpass was one of the eight that was flooded with rainwater on Friday. PHOTO: ATHAR KHAN/EXPRESS

A sudden flooding situation also emerged at the KPT Underpass, from Schön Circle till Do Talwar, but fortunately no vehicles were stuck or casualties reported from there. The underpass was clear, come morning.

Government officials, whether from the provincial government or Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), were reluctant to comment on the matter. However, a senior KMC director, on the condition of anonymity, revealed that the situation is the result of a tussle between the municipal authorities and provincial government.



He said that the early monsoon had been forecast and if the storm water drains had been cleaned before the rain, then none of the underpasses would have been flooded. He said that there were limited pumping machines available; therefore they were not able to give the underpasses first priority.

The director said that if the funds allocated for the purpose were utilised to clean the drains then the situation could have been greatly minimised.

The official said that when passing on the blame one should keep in mind the cocktail that is Karachi. There are several authorities responsible for the same task in Karachi, for example, if one department has been assigned the disposal of solid waste, then it should be assigned the responsibility for the whole city rather than just two districts, as such practices led to chaos in the city.

He said that there are small drains in the underpass which transport water to the nearest storm water drain, but unfortunately those storm water drains were blocked which led to flooding of the underpasses.

Deputy Mayor Arshad Vohra, in a statement about the flooding situation, said that dealing with such a situation requires great planning and coordination between various departments. He said that it was a tough job to control many departments at one time, adding that his staff and machinery were out in the field and were working to stabilise the situation.



Vohra apologized to the people of Karachi and said that they will work even harder to ease the citizens’ miseries.

KMC's project director responsible for the Golimar Underpass was contacted several times but declined to comment on the situation.