Pakistan’s Sindh says ‘well prepared’ amid looming threat of downstream floods
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Thursday his government is “well prepared” to tackle the looming threat of downstream floods from Punjab, saying officials were monitoring the River Indus and its embankments while climate activists and residents expressed fear.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has warned that rising water levels in Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers were carrying exceptionally high flows and were likely to course downstream into Sindh. The NDMA urged the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Sindh on Wednesday to evacuate people near the Indus River’s embankments and in riverine areas of the province.
Torrential rains and excess water released by India have caused devastating floods in Punjab, where 17 people have been killed this week and over 1,600 villages have been submerged with water. Pakistan’s Meteorological Department has warned that Sindh is likely to receive heavy downpours on Aug. 30 and 31 in Tharparkar, Umerkot, Sukkur, Larkana, Jacobabad and Dadu districts.
“The government is well prepared to face the situation we are anticipating,” Shah told Arab News.
He added that the provincial irrigation department is closely monitoring River Indus and its embankments at the Guddu, Sukkur and Kotri barrages.
Shah said his government has activated its emergency response mechanism to counter the looming threat of floods. He said the provincial government had reconstructed headworks and strengthened embankments after the cataclysmic floods of 2022, with several projects still ongoing.
The provincial government has also constructed eco-friendly homes for people affected by the 2022 floods in Sindh under the Peoples Housing Project initiative, the chief minister said.
“This time under the Peoples Housing Project, we have constructed houses damaged during the flood of 2022 in elevated areas,” Shah said.
Shah said relief measures taken by the province included officials stocking relief goods such as tents and mosquito nets. He said the government will also seek cooperation from the Pakistan Navy to evacuate people if necessary.
The Indus River passes through most of Sindh’s districts, leaving them vulnerable to floods when upstream rivers swell. Pakistan’s 2022 monsoon floods, the worst in its history, submerged a third of the country, killed more than 1,700 people and displaced 33 million.
Sindh bore the brunt of the calamity with 1,093 deaths, 1.8 million homes destroyed and the loss of 4.4 million acres of crops. Over a decade earlier in 2011, more than 430 people were killed as over 17 districts were flooded with water. A year before that in 2010, large areas of Pakistan and Sindh were inundated by “super-floods,” resulting in the displacement of millions.
’SUBMERGED FOR SEVERAL MONTHS’
Sindh-based writer Manzoor Solangi recalled how the 2010 floods were one of the five largest floods recorded worldwide since 1887, adding that nearly one million cusecs of water flowed downstream into the province.
He remembered how his home district of Naushahro Feroze received an unprecedented 1,763 millimeters of rainfall in 2022, damaging his house.
“There are fears the flow this time could exceed 1.2 million cusecs, a level beyond the capacity of the flow of Sindh’s all three barrages, Guddu, Sukkur and Kotri,” Solangi warned.
He noted that authorities may be forced to create breaches in flood protection dikes, which could result in large-scale flooding in Sindh’s settled areas.”
Climate activists agree.
“Climate change is a reality— a harsh reality we have to deal with,” Shahzeb Shah Jillani, a Khairpur-based climate activist, told Arab News.
“Vulnerable dikes and embankments must be reinforced, disposal systems functional, and health services ready for the outbreak of diseases that we witnessed in 2022.”
For families living near rivers in Sindh, the warnings come with genuine fear.
In Dadu district’s Johi city, schoolteacher Ranjho Khan Jamali still remembers the devastation of the previous floods. His extended family in a nearby village was displaced in 2022, losing livestock and grain stores.
“When our area is flooded, it’s not submerged for days or weeks but for several months,” he said.
“If the river overflows, we’ll be the ones who go under. That much we know.”