Flooding 2012: Livestock department scrambles to protect animals

Teams have been dispatched to Jacobabad to treat animals.

SUKKUR: The media’s reports on hazards in rain-affected regions have proved to be beneficial - for the cattle. While the livestock department has been jolted into action and started vaccinating animals in Gulanpur, a union council in Kashmore, its residents still beg for some respite.

Following the downpour, various stories were published in newspapers. Among them was a story depicting the miseries of Gulanpur’s residents, in The Express Tribune. The same day, the livestock department’s secretary, Abid Ali Shah, director-general Dr Akbar Soomro and director Dr Abdullah Mevati visited different areas in Jacobabad and Kashmore to assess the situation on the ground.

Teams from the department have started vaccinating cattle in Gulanpur, but no rescue measures have been taken by the district’s administration to move stranded people to safer places.

The livestock department’s deputy director for Kashmore, Dr Abdul Fatah Bhutto, told The Express Tribune that seven mobile teams had visited various villages of Gulanpur and vaccinated 6,000 animals. Other teams have also visited different areas of Tangwani, Mir Asghar Khan Bijarani, Ghouspur, Dari, Buxapur, Badani and Karampur. He said that two camps have also been established in Gulanpur and Dakhan Bungalow. Not only are cattle being vaccinated at the campus but medicine is also being provided.

But people are still looking desperately for help and the district administration has yet to initiate relief efforts. When contacted, Kashmore’s deputy commissioner, Munawwar Ali Mithiyani, simply told The Express Tribune to contact the district’s control room.

He seemed to be unaware of the hardships that Gulanpur’s residents are facing.

Sanaullah, an official working at the control room, told The Express Tribune that army carrying out the major relief work and said that Major Babar, who is supervising the rescue work, should be contacted.

When contacted, the major said, “We were on our way to Gulanpur and just as we were about to reach it, we received an emergency call from Tangwani and headed there instead. ”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2012.