CITY RECEIVES RAINFALL THAT IS ALMOST TRIPLE ITS RECENT AVERAGES, SAYS OFFICIAL

A WEATHER emergency was declared in Karachi on Monday (25) as heavier-than-usual monsoon rains continue to lash Pakistan’s biggest city, flooding homes and making streets impassable.

The monsoon, which usually lasts from June to September, is essential for irrigating crops and replenishing lakes and dams across the Indian subcontinent, but also brings a wave of destruction each year. This year’s monsoon is being felt hardest in cities, where poor infrastructure and services lead to clogged drains and culverts – and the collapse of the sewage system.

The result is widespread flooding, particularly in low-lying areas, and usually in poor neighbourhoods. In Rahim Goth, a slum in the west of the city, locals were attempting to bail water from their shacks and dwellings using buckets, pots and jugs.

But their efforts appeared futile as they tipped the contents into streets already several feet deep. “People (officials) come every year to inquire about us, but every year we are doomed,” Afsari Bano said as she tried to cook a family meal.

She said most of the family’s belongings – furniture, bedding and other possessions – were destroyed by flooding two years ago, and they were only just recovering. Now she was surrounded by water in which floated soiled nappies and other garbage. “Swarms of flies and mosquitos will follow now,” the 50-year housewife said.

“If someone dies – Allah forbid as life and death is in his hand – it is next to impossible to hold a funeral,” she added.

Sardar Sarfaraz, director of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, said an “unprecedented” 568 millimetres of rain had fallen in the city this month – nearly triple Karachi’s recent averages and more than four times that of two decades ago.

Pakistan ranks eighth on a list of countries most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change, according to the environment NGO Germwatch.

The provincial Sindh government announced a public holiday on Monday in Karachi and Hyderabad in a bid to avert flood chaos, but low-lying areas – already drenched by weeks of heavy rain – were soon the scenes of devastation.

“More rains are forecast in Karachi until tomorrow,” warned Sardar Sarfraz, director of the Met office.

Environmentalist Arif Zubair conceded monsoons can regularly cause natural havoc, but is clear what is to blame for the worsening situation – climate change. “(It) has engulfed all of south and southeast Asia,” he said on Tuesday (26).

“The recent (heavy) rains have certainly been an indicator of global climate change.”

Over 300 people have died as a result of the heavy monsoon rains this year, which have also washed away more than 600 kilometres of roads and 50 bridges, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). It said more than 10,000 homes had been damaged – with Baluchistan province the worst hit.

In Karachi, at least two people were electrocuted Monday by power lines that fell into flooded streets – a regular cause of death in the city during the monsoon.

The heavy downpour also disrupted flights and train operations in the megacity of 15 million. Coastal Karachi is particularly prone to flooding because the city has expanded with scant planning on a landscape ill-suited to urban development.

“We are sitting on a climate bomb,” Arif said. (AFP)