Every year now, monsoon rains ravage Karachi, with residents left at nature’s mercy and scrambling to ensure supply of basic necessities, while the provincial and federal governments engage in political point-scoring and the usual blame game. As Monday’s downpour presented a much-needed respite from the summer heat, for many the cheer dissipated as power outages notoriously accompanied the first drops of rain. While power disruption during rains should be the exception, in Karachi it has become the rule. Every year we see the same scenes with people going through painful experiences at the hands of power supply companies, be it K-Electric in Karachi or other companies in various cities across Pakistan. It does not take rain to be disastrous, it just needs the first drop to make the power supply disappear. The Met Dept has predicted rainfall in various areas from Kashmir to Karachi in the next few days, with warnings of flash floods and landslides in places prone to the natural disasters. While overnight rain in several areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and interior Sindh resulted in flash floods and power breakdowns, for Karachi’s residents, Monday’s surprise shower brought back haunting memories of last year’s catastrophe, when record-breaking monsoon rains, spread across several spells in July and August, wreaked havoc on the city’s infrastructure, including several days of a power breakdown and flooding of several major and minor arteries along with entire neighbourhoods, leading the provincial government to declare a ‘rain emergency’. Tragically, around 100 people were killed in rain-related incidents – many by electrocution. The devastation had led the PM to call in the army-led FWO and NDMA to help clean the city’s storm-water drains. The then-NDMA chief had emphasised understanding the city’s complex problems and creating a broad consensus among all the city’s stakeholders for a permanent solution. Unfortunately, it appears we are back on square one, despite the federal government announcing an over-Rs1 trillion uplift package for the mega city last year, which included cleaning of storm-water drains, as well as forming the ‘Karachi Coordination Committee’ to monitor the city’s overhaul.
In June this year, it was reported that 60 percent work on clearing storm-water drains had been completed by the various federal, provincial and local government agencies involved, and last week, the Karachi administrator asserted that preparations had been made after last year’s bad experience and hoped to see a better situation this year. Many of Karachi’s residents would disagree today. While inundation levels are not as bad yet, since it’s only the start of the season, what is surprising is the power breakdowns amid the light rain despite K-Electric claiming this month to have invested Rs4.5 billion in its distribution infrastructure this year alone as part of its rain-mitigation and network safety enhancement measures.
Researchers predict monsoons in Asia to become more intense and erratic with the annual rise in global warming. With the world reeling from climate change-led extreme weather events, why is it that every monsoon season we are found unprepared? A government which otherwise recognises the effects of climate change should do better. The disaster management and mitigation capacities of all federal and local agencies need to be completely revamped and invested in if we are to fare any better in the future. It would be a tragedy if we were to again witness the flooding of agricultural land in Sindh, which resulted in the displacement of thousands of poor farmers and loss of millions of arable land last year, as well as the destruction of villages and infrastructure in KP and other parts of northern Pakistan. As for Karachi, the mega city needs a dedicated, functioning storm-water drainage system free of sewage and encroachments, as well as upgraded power infrastructure which can withstand rains. But most of all, it needs a representative and empowered local government which cares.