Irresponsible management: Deadly KBR nullah yet to be cleared

The nullah was the site of a brutal mishap where a family of three lost their lives in 2013

KARACHI: Residents of Buffer Zone, surrounding the KBR nullah, are waiting for the rain to wreak havoc in the area, just it did in 2013 when an ill-fated family drowned in the garbage-filled drain.

According to the residents, the government has only erected cement walls on both sides of the small bridge behind Café Piyala following the incident. However, the nullah has yet to be cleaned of garbage.

Owner of the Betel kiosk, just beside the nullah, Ali, told The Express Tribune that the night of August 4, 2013, was terrifying. “The water was not knee-deep, it was till our stomachs,” he recalled. “We went to the rooftops of our houses to save ourselves.”

Read: A tale of Karachi's sewerage system: Garbage heaps and clogged drains



According to him the ill-fated family that drowned were asked by residents not to pass through the small, rickety bridge, which was almost inundated with water. He related how due to the darkness, Muzaffar - the father of the family - was unable to gauge the intensity of the water flow. “He thought that he would speed through,” he said, adding that when he reached there his car could not withstand the water pressure and was swept into the nullah.

“A side of the car was protruding out of the water and he [Muzaffar] was heard yelling for someone to save his 26-year-old wife, Yasmin, and one-year-old son, Abeer,” he recalled. He said that no one dared to step in the gushing water to save the family.

Read: Submerged: Light rain inundates parts of DHA

Ali said that it took two days for the Pakistan Navy divers to fish out the car and bodies, however, Muzaffar’s body was never found. “He was out of the car, he must have been swept away by current of water,” he speculated.

Another resident, Mir Muhammad Khan, who is considered to be the one of the oldest residents of the area, said that every year the area is inundated with rainwater. “No one bothers to ever clear these rain drains. More than three feet of solid trash has accumulated in these drains,” he said. He added that one could even ride a bike on this trash and that kids from nearby slums walked and played on it.

According to him, the surroundings of the nullah have been heavily encroached upon and it has been years since it has been cleared.

“Almost two months ago a truck came to clean it and it picked a fraction of the trash, dumping more than it picked up and went back,” he said, fearing that if it rained, like it did in 2013, the whole area would be submerged.

The blame game

North Nazimabad assistant commissioner, Rafiq Farooqui, told The Express Tribune that it was not his responsibility to clean that drain. “The District Municipal Corporation Central’s administrator, Aysha Abro, must provide answers about the KBR drain,” he said. Abro insisted the KBR nullah is part of Gujjar Nullah and it is the responsibility of the Karachi Metropolitian Corporation (KMC) to clean it.

“Cranes are needed to clean such huge nullahs and the DMC does not have such cranes,” she reasoned. No KMC official was available for comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2015.