A few historic facts about highest annual, daily rainfall in Karachi

LAHORE: The highest annual rainfall in Karachi was recorded in 1967, when the clouds had shed 869 millimeters (34.2 inches) of water, causing waterlogging, traffic chaos and power outages across the city whose population was hardly 1.5 million then, research shows.

Of this 869 millimeters of precipitation, around 713 millimeters was recorded during the entire monsoon spell in the city, which remained flooded for days and the Pakistan Navy had to run motorboats to evacuate thousands of people stranded in various areas of the metropolis, newspaper archives reveal.

The heaviest rainfall on a single day here was recorded on August 27, 2020 as 484 millimeters (19 inches) of precipitation had lashed country’s chief commercial hub with all severity. Of this, 231 millimeters of downpour had fallen in just 12 hours, surpassing the previous high of 211.3 millimeters set in 1967, literally paralysing life.

This was the highest rainfall recorded in the city during the last 89 years or since 1931.

Between August 4 and 27, 2020, at least 41 people had lost lives due to urban flooding in Karachi.

On July 12, 2022, the “Friday Times” had stated: “Records of monsoon rainfall in the city kept by the British from the late 19th century till the 1940s show that in 1902, Karachi received uncharacteristic monsoon rains that flooded the city. The next major flooding took place during the monsoon rains of 1958, some 11 years after Karachi became part of Pakistan. Till the late 1970s, heavy monsoons in Karachi were infrequent. Their intensity began to increase steadily from 1979, until they became more frequent from the early 2000s onwards.”

The media house had maintained that between 1947 and 1990s, the influx of refugees from India, labour from the former NWFP, and refugees from Afghanistan, saw successive governments mostly settling them along Karachi’s storm water drains (nullas) which carry rainwater into the sea.

These nullahs also began to be used to dispose waste. During 1979’s heavy monsoon rains, a lot of settlements along the drains were washed away, the “Friday Times” had noted.

According to the Federal Flood Commission, by August 2022, Pakistan had witnessed at least 28 super riverine floods in its history.

The first recorded super flood was witnessed in 1950, followed by 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1995; and then every year since 2010 — which also saw the worst flood in the country’s history. These floods have collectively affected 616,558 square kilometers of land, led to 13,262 deaths and caused losses worth over Rs39 billion to the national economy.

From June 15 to October 2022, floods in Pakistan killed 1,739 people, and caused about $30 billion in damages, according to an October 28, 2022 report of the World Bank Group.

Housing; agriculture & livestock, and transport and communication sectors suffered the most significant damage, at $5.6 billion, $3.7 billion and $3.3 billion respectively.

About 33 million people were affected by floods, and more than eight million humans were displaced due to fuming and raging waters.

The immediate causes of the floods were heavier than usual monsoon rains and melting glaciers that followed a severe heat wave, both of which are linked to climate change.

The “Encyclopedia Britannica” had viewed: “Pakistan was already dealing with the economic fallout from record high inflation and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic when the disaster struck. Government officials declared a state of emergency in August as the flooding peaked, inundating some 246,000 square km (95,000 square miles)—an area roughly the size of the American state of West Virginia. More than $800 million was raised from foreign governments and private donors to provide Pakistan with immediate life-saving health services, food, water, and shelter as well as ongoing support to prevent disease outbreaks and famine.”