Potholes haunt Karachiites

Flooding caused by the recent torrential downpours has made Karachi’s already hanging by a thread infrastructure come closer to an utter collapse and residents feel that the provincial government is nowhere to be seen nor does it care.

While the raging metropolis’s roads have not been anything to boast about in the past, the unprecedented rainfall in the monsoon season has rendered them as a safety risk due to the crater-like potholes. Furthermore, with roads and streets flooded, the only way people come to know of the potholes is when their vehicles get stuck in them.

Parveen Kausar, who has called the city home for many decades and delivers clothes for a living, told The Express Tribune that she had fallen victim to a chuckhole recently. “I was travelling on a motorcycle from North Karachi to Gulshan-e-Iqbal and the bike slipped due to a massive fissure on the Liaquatabad No. 10 road,” the 62-year-old narrated. Resultantly, she injured her neck and back and is now recovering from the pain. Another resident, Kashif Khan, a sales officer by profession, who met with an accident like Kausar, did not mince his words, whilst talking about the state of the city’s roads.

“Karachi pays the most tax in the country and the provincial government does not even want to provide basic facilities,” he said. Khan, who was thankful that he had narrowly avoided a spine injury after his motorcycle slipped in a pothole, demanded that the Sindh government immediately fix the roads. It is pertinent to mention that the state of city’s roads is such that it prompted the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Traffic, to issue a circular last month stating that deep chuckholes had formed at multiple places on 97 major roads in the city and had further requested the Sindh government to repair the roads immediately.

Among the roads which are damaged due to rain include MA Jinnah Road, Shahrah-e-Liaquat, Mansfield Street, Sarwar Shaheed Road, Raja Ghazanfar Ali Road, Sharah-e-Iraq, Korangi Road, Priddy Street, University Road, Rashid Minhas Road, Sharah-e-Pakistan Highway, and Jahangir Road. However, sources privy to the situation informed that despite the letter nothing had been done as of yet. A traffic police officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that the condition of roads in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Jahangir Road, Sharae Pakistan, Sahab Akhtar Road, and Model Colony was the worst.

“These areas have developed deep pits and potholes at various points due to which an upsurge in road accidents has been seen in recent weeks,” he said, adding that the incidents of vehicle breakdowns on these roads had also increased. Resultantly, hospitals have had an influx of patients victimised by potholes. Dr Saleha Ishaq, a physiatrist, informed that people visiting the hospital with back injuries had increased. “Most of them are motorcyclists, who slipped and fell off their bike due to potholes.” Another physiatrist, Dr Tabib Rasool, concurring with Dr Ishaq, explained that most patients were motorcyclists because the ride has bad shock absorbers and a fall means a slipped disc, which can cause excruciating pain.

Municipal Commissioner of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), Afzal Zaidi, when asked as to when the chuckholes would be fixed, replied that the construction and repair work of the roads could only begin after the end of the monsoon season. “For now, KMC has advised the relevant local bodies to install barriers around fissures in the road to avoid any mishaps,” Zaidi informed. Prolonged nightmareResidents of Karachi were hopeful of catching a break from all the rain and doom and gloom of the monsoon season, but the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has now dashed those hopes by predicting a further spell of torrential downpour. On top of that, urban planning experts believe that steps the Sindh government is taking now to prevent flooding, might be too little too late. Muhammad Toheed, an urban planner based in Karachi, said that the government should have cleaned and repaired drains before monsoon not when monsoon had arrived and cause havoc.

“They have opened the sewers and failed to fix the roads which will only cause more trouble for the people,” Toheed predicted.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2022.