Forgotten promises: Remember the Sea View tragedy? Civic authorities don’t

Year after 40 people drowned, there have been no safety measures to prevent a repeat of the disaster.

KARACHI:

Remember last year, when 40 picnickers drowned at Sea View. The civic administration seems to have forgotten already.

Almost a year has passed, but all their claims of providing foolproof safety measures have yet to take physical form. Though thousands visit the beach every day, there are limited precautions taken for their protection.

The coastal belt, popularly known as Sea View, is the most accessible strip of the shoreline for most residents of the city. Its management is shared by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and the Defence Housing Authority (DHA).

Six months ago, an NGO had promised to install four watch towers in the area that fell under the KMC's jurisdiction. The promise has been forgotten, for now. "This is how NGOs operate," said Muhammad Aslam, the incharge of the KMC's rescue service at Sea View. He added that the NGO, Citizens Council for Human Rights, had also promised to install three more watch towers but nothing had been done so far. The lone watch tower has also developed faults. "The loudspeaker system of the watch tower went out of order two months ago," he claimed. "No lifeguard has been posted to the watch tower since." The representatives of the NGO were unavailable for comments.

In response to a question, Aslam said they deployed 10 lifeguards and two divers for the safety of thousands of visitors. "In the KMC department, there are only 45 lifeguards and 10 divers, who are posted not just at Sea View, but at Hawke's Bay, Sandspit and other sites on the coastline frequented by picnickers."

DHA's jurisdiction

The DHA is responsible for the strip between Sea View Mcdonalds and Do Darya. Most picnickers bathe in the area between Mcdonalds and the Village restaurant, where the DHA administration has set up eight movable watch towers.

"During peak time, we move the watch towers closer to the shore to keep watch over the visitors and prevent them from going too far into the water," explained Rab Nawaz, a lifeguard. He is employed by the Aman Pulse NGO and makes Rs10,000 from his job as a lifeguard. But Nawaz feels the 15 lifeguards stationed at the long strip at any given point are helpless against the thousands of revelers who throng the beach at peak time.

"The DHA should deploy security guards with boats as an added precaution," he suggested.

DHA response

A DHA official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, justified that the condition of the area falling under the DHA's control was far better than the area managed by the KMC. He added, however, there were several more projects in the pipeline and they hoped to set up an emergency response centre before Ramazan.

Commissioner's reasoning

Commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui admitted that over seven million people visit Karachi's beaches each year. This meant that beach safety was a vital issue that needed a lot of attention from the authorities. "The civic administration, with the help of NGOs, had planned to establish state-of-the art watch towers, emergency rescue centres and deploy a large number of lifeguards along the picnic spots," he claimed. "Unfortunately, the NGOs failed to deliver."

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2015.