Karachi calling
Karachi has yet to recover from the wrath of the August rains. The rains were unprecedented in terms of the volume — 484mm in a single month, of August, including 223.5mm in a single day, on August 27 — and the damages it caused were unparalleled. Nearly 50 people lost their lives to the devastating rains in the metropolis; the entire civic infrastructure caved in; and the public and private properties, including cars, household appliances, and industrial stocks and merchandise, were spoiled. The rains even left many houses in a state where they cannot be inhabited again.
The rain wrath was widespread, and both poor class localities and upscale neighbourhoods were on the same page in terms of devastation. The roads and highways got flooded, cutting off one part of the city from another; the stormwater drains, already choked and encroached upon, failed to absorb the heavy cloudburst; the rainwater made way into the houses and shops like never before, with some of the neighbourhoods went several feet under water, and people were forced to take refuge on the rooftops; the power supply was suspended, not to be restored for days in some parts of the city; and the communications system was also disrupted affecting cellphone networks and internet services.
The rain has long gone and it’s been dry for more than three weeks now, but the signs of the rain destruction are still visible. Roads and thoroughfares in nearly the entire city stand dug up and driving to office and back home is a daily agony for motorists. Gutters continue to overflow, even in the post neighbourhoods, with the air filled with the stinking smell. Residents in many areas are complaining of the sewage water seeping into the drinking-water pipelines, with none of the authorities bothered. The mounds of filth and dirt keep growing as an eyesore across the city. And to add to the agony, the duration of electricity loadshedding has increased of late, reportedly due to the K-Electric power stations getting low gas pressure.
Many parts of the metropolis — Naya Nazimabad and Old City areas to name a few — are still not completely cleared of the rainwater. The authorities concerned simply don’t realise how dangerous the accumulating rainwater can be. To quote an instance, a four-storey building collapsed in the city’s Korangi area on September 11. According to the residents of the building, the rainwater had been standing in the basement of the building since end August, but none of the civic agencies were bothered. An SBCA official was of the view that the building collapsed due to weak foundations and columns which were further weakened due to the accumulating rainwater. Karachi’s twin city, Hyderabad, also witnessed loss of human life due to the standing rainwater. A boy, 8, disappeared in a pond of rainwater in Latifabad neighbourhood only to be found as breathless corpse hours later.
The rain devastation did bring the neglected financial capital of the country into national focus and led to the Centre and Sindh — the two political adversaries — joining hands for fixing the perennial problems that Karachiites have been suffering from for decades. The two sides announced a joint Rs1.1 trillion worth of ‘Karachi Transformation Plan’ aimed at reviving the lost glory of a city that welcomes everybody into its fold but that nobody owns. However, despite the passage of two weeks, things don’t seem to be moving in line with the announcement. Not even the first steps — like lifting the garbage and clearing the streets and roads of the sludge the rainwater has turned into — have been taken. Karachi is desperately waiting for its saviours.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 20th, 2020.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.