‘There’s no pride anymore in Karachi. It’s like we have given up caring’

The Sea View beach, one of the most visited sites of Karachi, has once again become a hot topic on Twitter after its picture was published in The News’ October 1 issue that showed it in an extremely dirty state with garbage strewn all over the place to an extent that it seemed more like a landfill site than a recreational spot.

The Sea View area is under the administrative control of the Clifton Cantonment Board (CBC). It is the second time, this year, the CBC and Defence Housing Authority (DHA), have come under criticism for not being able to deliver basic civic amenities in Karachi’s one of the most upscale areas, Defence. In August, hundreds of residents thronged the CBC and DHA offices for miserably failing to drain rainwater from the area.

Scientific phenomenon

The sea seems to have washed up garbage it has been gathering for years on the shore. Worldwide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan) technical adviser Moazzam Ali Khan explained to The News how this year’s unprecedented rainfall was the cause of this phenomenon.

“The city generates 13,000 tons of garbage daily, of which hardly 8,000 tons are lifted,” he said, adding that 7,000 tons of garbage on a daily basis make its way to the sea and when it rains heavily, all the plastic and other sorts of garbage flows through drains towards sea.

At the end of the September, Khan explained, the monsoon season ends in the city and tides start moving towards India. “This period is known as South West Monsoon Calm Period,” he said, adding that during this period, the circulation and tidal flow of the sea changes and garbage in the sea gets washed ashore.

Explaining the reason behind more garbage washing ashore this year than what is normally observed, the WWF-Pakistan technical adviser said due to extreme heavy rains, unprecedented amount of garbage was taken by the rainwater into the sea.

On Twitter

It was during this condition of the beach when cricket legend Wasim Akram and his wife Shaniera Akram went to the Sea View beach only to be horrified by the garbage scattered everywhere.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, there’s more plastic in our port than fish!” She wrote as she tweeted a photo of the beach carried out by The News. “I am sick of this. We clean the beach again and again only to have the city’s garbage dumped into our sea and sewerage lines, which eventually washes up on our shore. I am not even going to the beach anymore. I have had enough. This is an embarrassment to our country. We should be ashamed.”

It was only the first tweet of hers on the subject. She late went on a tweeting spree regarding the condition of Sea View. She felt the trash on Sea View “beyond heartbreaking.” “This has now become offensive. I am offended that someone thinks we should tolerate this.”

She went on to tweet that it wasn’t just the beach as there was garbage everywhere. “It’s on our street corners, our lanes, outside our shops, in front of our offices, next to our schools, dumped on vacant land, outside our homes, on our only beach and it’s in our ocean. We are literally swimming in it.”

All she saw, she said, was rubbish and people breaking the law. “There’s no pride anymore in Karachi. It’s like we have given up caring.” Shaneira said that when she thought of Pakistani people, she thought of ‘pride’. “We take pride in everything, our families, neighbors, friends, offices, homes, gardens. It is so sad to see the community of Karachi living this way. It’s actually not in our nature just to be okay with living in a city of ruins,” she tweeted.

On Monday morning, she again tweeted her picture standing on the garbage strewn across the beach’s shore. “Our city is in pain and it’s telling us every day. We are crying out for help but nobody can hear us. This has got to stop! This has bought shame on our city, our people and on our culture. This is not who we are,” she wrote.

She tweeted that the people of Karachi wanted the beach cleaned for good. “Our city is a volcano spewing out rubbish and it’s destroying everything in its path.”

Wasim also supported his wife on Twitter and posted a video on Monday. “It’s a first day of a week, I thought it’d be fun, but I made a huge mistake bringing my wife to Sea View. Just look at it [the beach] and don’t blame anyone, but ourselves as a nation. It’s embarrassing,” he said, adding that how his wife tells the entire world how beautiful country Pakistan is, and people are beautiful.

He explained that it was all garbage that we threw in the sea and now the tides had brought it all out on the shore.

After the couple raised the issue on Twitter, many celebrities also joined them to show their support for the cause. Television host and stand-up comedian Shafaat Ali tweeted, “We throw thousands of gallons of untreated sewerage into the sea, that too through the only beach of Karachi, Sea View. This is what the sea throws back at us.”

Fashion designer Asim Jofa also took to Twitter and said that it was not the responsibility of a few people to clean the beach. “The garbage being dumped in our ocean is a menace. A proper system should be devised and put to operation to overcome this issue. If nothing is done about it soon, we will lose our beautiful coastline to garbage.” The News tried to contact officials of the CBC for comments but none of them was available.