Rain terror

In less than 24 hours, Karachi was lashed with over 100 millimetres of rain – close to one-third of the total rain the city gets in an average year. At least 11 people have been killed, most of them through electrocution, and the monsoon rains are clearly stronger and more persistent than they have been in recent years. Still, that does not justify the complete lack of preparation by the Sindh and Karachi governments. Some emergency arrangements were made but the time to properly protect against heavy rains is long before the rains arrive. There are not enough storm water drains and those that do exist have been clogged by uncollected trash, especially polythene bags. Mangrove trees which provide a natural barrier in times of severe storms have been replaced by yet more housing societies. The infrastructure upgrades promised by K-Electric so that feeders would not trip after the first drop of rain never materialised. When our roads are flooded, power is out for most of the day and daily life becomes impossible to maintain. That is not a natural disaster but a man-made one. It is the absence of governance in Karachi that turns something as predictable as monsoon rains into such a dangerous phenomenon.

Rather than hold their hands up and admit they are at fault, the city and provincial governments have been blaming each other for the chaos in Karachi. Mayor Waseem Akhtar has said that there was nothing he could do since the provincial government had not given him the required resources. The Sindh government has responded by pointing out that it gives sufficient grants to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation every month. While that is true, their amount has remained stagnant for many years and hasn’t taken inflation into account. It is also true that the provincial government has taken over many of the responsibilities that previously belonged to the city government. This includes the proper disposal of the trash that is now clogging drains. The water board department too is under the authority of the Sindh government. It is now the duty of the provincial government to construct the new sewerage system that is needed to better tackle such heavy rains. The Sindh government controls both the purse strings and most of the departments that are needed to ensure that the city does not suffer needlessly during monsoon season. It needs to accept responsibility and ensure we are better prepared next year. By deflecting blame, both the provincial and the city governments are just denying their own culpability in the misery that the people of Karachi have had to continue to face each time a drop of water falls from the skies. In the meanwhile, the residents of Karachi are left to fight their own battles with power outages, clogged drains and drowned streets.