Up to 1,000,000 people may be hit by floods this year, warns monitoring agency

Nearly 0.4m more cusecs of water could hit Sindh.

KARACHI:

The predictions are in. There are chances about 1.5 million cusecs of water will enter Sindh and could affect one million people, says the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in its contingency plan.

Last year, less water, about 1.1 million cusecs displaced more than 7.5 million people in the province. “Officials should focus on strengthening the 3,500 breaches in the canals from last year,” says the report.

The Meteorological office, environmentalists and planning and development experts helped the government put together its contingency plan as there are fears flooding this year could cause losses to the irrigation and drainage channels.

The PDMA has indicated that there are about 75 sensitive points in the districts.

Torrential waters coming from the Khirthar range, which runs along the border of Sindh and Balochistan could wreak havoc to some parts of Dadu and Kamber-Shahdadkot, the experts have warned.

This year too Thatta district could be more vulnerable and 0.2 million people need to be warned.

If there is an emergency, the engineering corps of the armed forces should be asked to help. “The army would establish regional disaster management hubs all over Sindh for monsoon 2011 and navy and air force personnel would be deputed over there,” the report says. To start off with, 14 helicopters from the armed forces, four to six from the naval or air force and 563 boats would be mobilised.

The PMDA has suggested that the irrigation department remove private dykes set up by influential people in the riverbed as they obstruct the natural flow of water.

“This is a prediction that the flow of water may be in the range of 0.8 million to 1.5 million cusecs, but it again depends on the intensity of the monsoon rains,” explained Syed Sajjad Hyder Shah, who is the director of operations for the PDMA.

Technically, this qualifies as a “super flood” as 0.9 million cusecs is the cut-off. The PDMA has asked for Rs11 billion to prepare the government machinery and start work on mobilising relief.

Meetings have started with all district coordination officers and district disaster management committees. They are even holding workshops for staff. There are a total of 149 sensitive points along the river Indus from Kashmore to Thatta. Shah quoted irrigation officials as saying that they had strengthened 41 points.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 3^rd, 2011.