Sewage backs up after Clifton pumping station damaged

KARACHI: It is feared that millions of gallons of sewage may spew into the streets within 24 hours as the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board’s (KWSB) sewerage pumping station in Clifton was damaged in Thursday’s bomb blast.

The station - which collects and drains 24 million gallons of sewerage water from the southern part of the city -stopped working at 8:30 pm on Friday after the attack damaged six of its transformers, the electric panels as well as the rising main - which receives sewage from areas in the south of the city and pumps it out to a sewage treatment plant in Mehmoodabad.

As waste continues to flow into the pumping station, it is feared that while it is currently being accumulated at the station’s storage facility, the sewerage water may start flowing out to the streets within 24 hours if alternate ways of pumping the waste are not devised.

On Saturday, Sindh information technology minister Raza Haroon met KWSB officials, the city’s administrator and the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) officials to figure out a solution to the problem. CDGK’s EDO works and services Engineer A Rasheed Mughal, EDO municipal services Masood Alam and the Saddar Town administrator were asked to start creating diversion routes for the accumulating sewage.

KWSB mechanical and technical chief engineer Zaheer Abbas Zaidi told The Express Tribune that the utility was already facing a dearth of funds and needed Rs40 million on an emergency basis to initiate alternate means of pumping the sewage out.

Efforts to procure four diesel-operated pumping machines worth Rs30 million are underway and the board is trying to have them installed by Tuesday, said Zaidi, adding that any delays could make the situation get out of control.

Apart from these interim measures, proper arrangements to make the Clifton sewerage pumping station functional again would require a minimum funding of Rs400 million, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th, 2010.