Destruction persists as flood water turns into a commodity for poor

HYDERABAD: As flood water has washed away water supply lines of different small towns and villages, some people have started selling stagnant water for human consumption.
Sajjad Lashari, a teenager from Aliabad town, Jamshoro District, has bought a donkey-cart to transport the stagnant flood waters to those with no access to clean water. He fills around 100-150 litre drums of different sizes for the sale. Prices vary between Rs50-100, depending on the size of the drum. The teenager was otherwise a daily wager, earning Rs200-250 in a day as a coalminer on some days and construction worker on others.
There are about a dozen donkey-cart owners who are involved in this business of commodifying stagnant flood water for the consumption of both humans and livestock. They make around five-six rounds a day for filling the drums and selling them to the affected community. It earns them around Rs800-1,000 per day.
These water suppliers from the flood area justify the purity of stagnant water by drinking it themselves. Since the flood has washed away the water supply lines that were serving people living close to the Indus Highway, the people have no choice but to buy the contaminated water.
Travelling to the Budhapur Town of catchment area one can see destruction all around. There are dried standing crops like cotton, millet and other seasonal vegetables. Stagnant water is everywhere, close to roadsides and pathways and in submerged villages and towns. Villages still under water wear the look of a haunted ruin. The stench of dead animals forces people to keep a distance from all this destruction while travelling on dilapidated roads.
Though the flood water is still there, inundating vast areas, scattered families could be seen wading through knee deep water, returning to their homes. These people have horrific tales to narrate of how they saw the floods that forced them to leave their homes and head to higher ground, where they spent days without food and potable water.
Khan Shoro, an old man taking care of his two buffalos on a roadside, said, “We could not take our belongings with us, because the water entered our houses unexpectedly during night time while people were still building the embankment for safeguarding Budhapur town.”
He narrates how people had no time to take much to safety. “We took animals and children hurriedly to safety. We waded through high waters for a few kilometres to reach higher grounds. In all this, I lost wheat straw fodder worth Rs30,000 and now have to buy it for Rs400-500 per mound from a local shop,” he said.
Shoro told The News how those who chose to stay around for the waters to recede lost their animals. “It was a big loss to the herders, who lost not only their traditional assets but had already lost their alternate sources of living,” he said.
The communities of this area of Jamshoro district were traditionally known after the Unarpur Forest, which was thick and provided the sources of living to the local families. But now, unfortunately, the forest has depleted and people depend on cultivating family lands or rearing livestock. Unarpur, the major town is a business centre for more than one hundred small villages, located in the river’s catchment area.
Despite the fact that the river carrying high flood flowed between the two embankments and there was no incident of breaches reported throughout its flow, the catchment area came under the water wrecking havoc on all the farmer and herder families. Water flowed all its way to reach the Indus Delta, creating chaos in the 2.2 million acres of catchment areas. There were an estimated 1.5 million people residing in the catchment areas from Kashmor to Thatta and Sujawal.
Since Jamshoro district is located on both sides of the Indus, it faced displacement and destruction of the riverine communities.
According to the data collected by Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Sindh, they have evacuated 995,030 persons with 644,097 livestock from 3,203 villages of all the 15 districts of Sindh that are affected by the flood.
Some people who had left their animals behind now have sick animals on their hands and are demanding the government to conduct a vaccination campaign.
A farmer, Bacho Zardari of village Sono Zardari near Budhapur Town demanded nothing from the government but vaccinations for his buffalos, which are inflicted with viral infections. The animals are diseased and are not eating fodder, which further compounds the problems of the community due to their reliance on milk and other products from the animals.
Though Bacho does not know what afflicts the buffaloes, he said they cannot be milked for fear of carrying transferable diseases.
As the families trickle back to their abodes, many remain stranded due to high flood waters. Rescue and relief efforts also seem to be slow, and on self help basis, people are trying to find whatever sustenance they can. Some are trying to catch some fish from the stagnant waters.
In this difficult time, many people are selling their smaller animals to meet the needs of food and ration for human and fodder for their animals.
Faiz Zardari of the same locality, said, “We cannot understand why water from many hand pumps has turned saline. Though we are living close to the river bed, the taste of the underground water has changed.”