Encroachments obstructed flow of water

KARACHI: Someone once said that society is perhaps a way humans try to reduce their humiliating passivity to Nature. For as we have just seen, when Nature exerts its force, no one can stand up to it.

But, we cannot help but look at the River Indus and the course it has taken and ask how the physics of the flood worked. We would be foolish not to take responsibility for the mark we leave on the environment. Indeed, human activity played a part in the devastation, as Taj Haider, the Sindh general secretary of the Pakistan Peoples Party, pointed out last week in a briefing to the staff of The Express Tribune.

Contrary to what most people had assumed, the water moved slowly despite its immense volume, he pointed out. This not only threw off estimates of how much water there was but also meant that it naturally spread wider. To add to this, encroachments on the riverbed and down in the creeks towards the sea, all obstructed the flow of the water.

And what do we make of the fact, for example, that the essential removal of silt between the canals and the bund walls at the Sukkur Barrage had not been done for seven years? “There was three metres of mud in that area,” said Haider, adding that this affected the barrage’s ability to pass water. Fortunately, though, the irrigation workers removed the silt at the canal mouths before the flood came. Nothing could be done about the gates of the barrage that were jammed shut by years of silt.

On the small island that juts out between gates 5 and 13 of the Sukkur Barrage, a buildup of silt over the years meant that people were able to build a mosque on the patch. The riverbed itself was also encroached on by landlord and hari alike. In particular, the kachcha area, which is the swampy lining by the levees, was being cultivated because of its highly fertile area. “It would be a mistake to stop cultivating here,” said Haider, but added that people could not be allowed to build walls around their patches as that too obstructed the flow of water.

But a bigger problem is that as the River Indus had shrunk people had built on the riverbed and walls were erected to protect their little patches of land. When the water came this time, it was obstructed by all manner of encroachment, as a result of which, instead of flowing straight down, it spread out. The river met yet another obstruction as it headed to the delta where there are 17 creeks. Here too walls were built around farms with the same results.

“These people were not allowing engineers to cut down the zamindari bunds, which had mounted pressure on the embankments near Thatta.”

It did not help that there were grossly wrong assessments of how much water was headed to Sindh. As Haider put it, “900,000 cusecs were expected but 1.2 million came.”

The timing of the water also threw the government off. It normally takes a week for water to reach Kotri from Sukkur barrage. But because of the obstructed flow, it took 18 days.

Ali Wahan

Haider maintained that the area beyond Ali Wahan embankment has become cultivated and is laced with an irrigation network. Thus it is not true that if the bund were broken the water would have flowed into uninhabited land. The decision to leave that bund was perhaps a good one in this respect, he said.

For anyone wondering why the canals were not broken, the answer is two-fold. Canals run on higher ground and if you break one, water spreads to very large area. Also, all the irrigation staff was deputed to the embankment and there was no one at the canals.

Haider admitted that because of the Tori fiasco, the government had delayed taking a decision to break a embankment at Thatta. This could have spared some land.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2010.