Unmaintained hill torrent pathways behind flooding: report

Experts say encroachments blocked hill torrent pathways

RAJANPUR:

It has been found that the pathways taken by hill torrents originating from the Suleman Mountain Range needed to be de-silted and widened, to ensure they do not overflow and ravage rural and urban settlements, as they did recently in Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur.

Four spells of monsoon rains fell over the Suleman Mountain Range, starting in July and carrying on into August. The downpours triggered ferocious hill torrents that swept through DG Khan and Rajanpur districts, causing widespread casualties and the devastation of crops, houses and road networks. Army helicopters were dispatched to reach out to the affected communities with relief packages.

A fifth spell of monsoon rains is ongoing.

The two districts lie between the Suleman Mountain Range in the west and the Indus River in the east. The devastating floods of 2010 originated from the Indus, however in 2022, the districts were deluged by low-to-medium level flooding from the Indus River and the hill torrent from the Suleman Mountains. Irrigation Executive Engineer Zain Malik believed the hill torrents were 400 times mightier than usual.

An official report published on August 20 put the damage in DG Khan District at 342 villages, with 80 union councils submerged and 699,502 people affected directly. Over 1.4 million acres of crop area were washed away and 58,593 houses damaged.

In Rajanpur, hill torrents affected nearly 100,000 people and submerged 309,000 acres of agriculture land in 158 Mauzas, besides damaging many houses, according to an official report dated August 22.

Former director general Intelligence Bureau (IB) Sardar Akhtar Hassan Gorchani, who served in many important positions in police department, said he could see the speedy hill torrents from his home in Lalgarh village, Tehsil Jampur. Gorchani said that the once 50-60 foot wide hill torrent pathways had now turned into ordinary drains, due to continuous silting and encroachment.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2022.