Heavy rains stall day-to-day life in Sialkot

Rain also has affected communication systems throughout the district as electricity was out for the entire day.

SIALKOT: On Saturday the Sialkot region received heavy rainfall and strong winds, the rain also has affected communication systems throughout the district as electricity remained suspended for nearly the entire day in urban and rural areas Daska, Sambrial and Pasrur.

It continued to rain throughout the day. Most low-lying urban and rural areas of the district were inundated, paralysing all social activity. “I don’t ever remember it being this bad. There are areas through which we cannot walk or pass because of the sewerage water,” said Pasrur resident Saad Karim.

Local residents are blaming the Sialkot tehsil municipal administration (TMA) for negligence given that all the main roads in the city including

Kutchery Road, Paris Road, Abbot Road, Jail Road, Railway Road, Mujahid Road, Commissioner Road, the congested Allama Iqbal Chowk,

Khadim Ali Road, Sialkot Airport Road and Hajipura Road.

All these roads surround congested residential, industrial and commercial areas (including Sialkot railway station, Sialkot district jail and all main and link roads leading towards the Sialkot International Airport).

Decades-old clogged sewerage and drainage lines have been overflowing in the city and people fear that the water may not recede for a couple of days. Concerned officials of the Sialkot MET Office have forecast more heavy rains in the region and in all the catchment areas of neighbouring occupied Jammu  and Kashmir during the next 24 hours.

The monsoon rain spell started from second week of July and had caused devastating floods, affecting millions of people across the country but MET officials say the flood waters have already started to recede and the situation will improve.

“The situation is getting better in terms of the weather but the challenge of coping with the devastation caused by the floods has only just begun,” said MET official Sarwar, adding that on and off monsoon rain was likely to continue in the coming days and will probably end in the third or last week of this month.

Locals in Sialkot are apathetic about an early solution to the problems caused by the rain water. “We cannot bemoan the fact that it is raining and there is water given the fact that this is the story throughout the country.

However, the fact that we have to cope with sewerage water flooding the streets is the real problem,” said David Masih, a Sambrial resident.

A weather forecast official said that the monsoon currents of weak to moderate intensity, penetrating over eastern parts of the country, were likely to cause isolated thundershowers in northern Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Kashmir. “A fresh westerly wave prevailing over the north of the country is likely to persist during the next three days and cause isolated rain in Sialkot ,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2010.