Inaugural training session: People prepare to put up a fight against floods

Hundreds attend the workshop, experts discuss problem-solving techniques.

HYDERABAD:

Hundreds of people, from various sub-divisions and districts of Sindh, huddled under a huge tent on the left bank of River Indus near Hyderabad Bypass on Saturday, to attend a training session for combating floods.

This workshop was arranged by the Sindh irrigation department and the Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (Sida). The Sindh Secretary Irrigation Khalid Hyder Memon just recently formed a committee of irrigation experts, comprising  serving and retired officers from Sida and the irrigation department.

The committee is tasked to train the irrigation officers and field staff in tackling floods. The event was inaugurated by Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo.

The occassion was the first of a series of training sessions. The workshop comprised four parts — the experts briefed the participants on embankment maintenance and flood fighting measures in the first part, while during the following two parts, the trainees interacted with the experts  and raised questions and concerns. In the last session, the participants were handed over a questionnaire with 18 problems to be answered in writing. The participants will soon find out their performance in these questionnaires.

During the session, the experts briefed the trainees on a range of flood fighting and bund protection rules. “There are two types of seepages: one occurs with clean water pouring out from the backside of an embankment, while the other is with muddy water,” explained Allah Warayo Channa, a retired chief engineer. “It is the second which should make you worry.” Channa explained that the remedial measure for this leakage is by filling it with enough sand till the water bubbles die down.

The experts also interacted amongst themselves to share problem-solving techniques. An irrigation executive engineer inquired the experts about how to deal with a blow-out in the bunds. Blow-out is an underground leak, often called a sand-boil, because it occurs through a sand stratum under the base of a bund.

“Three methods can be used to thwart it, but the most efficient way is to put a 220 liter container (drum) on the point of a blow-out,” answered Zarif Kharejo, the executive engineer of Northern Larkana Subdivision.

Muhammad Khan Nizamani, was introduced as an irrigation officer who saved Hyderabad from floods. “The condition at Ghalyan Bund was nerve-wracking,”  he said while talking about an embankment where a breach would have led to the inundation of Hyderabad.

“Protecting Ghalyan was no less than a miracle,” said Nizamani. “At one point in time we lost hope...Suddenly we saw water pressure receding from there,” he recalled.

This training event is the first of its kind in recent history. The experts’ committee will now hold similar training sessions in Sukkur, Larkana and Nawabshah in the following days.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2011.