ISLAMABAD: Canal waters and monsoon rains flooded Karachi on Thursday, with main roads submerged, sewage spewing from manholes and into homes, and power cuts lasting for hours.
Although rains have lashed many parts of Pakistan, the southern port city of Karachi, located near the Arabian sea, has been the hardest-hit.
Video footage shared by television channels and social media users showed parts of the city under water and people swimming in the streets as furniture, trees and even cars floated past. In one video, young men dove off a four story building into the water.
The rains are expected to continue the rest of the week in Karachi, a city of 15 million, where Prime Minister Imran Khan earlier this month sent troops to help local authorities clean drains after a spell of devastating rains.
Every year, many cities in Pakistan struggle to cope with rains during the monsoon season which runs from July through September.
Chief Minister of Pakistan's southern Sindh province, Syed Murad Ali Shah, said this week at least $10 billion was required to modernize the infrastructure of Karachi where the management of infrastructure and services has been hamstrung by disputes between different levels of government for decades.
In the 1960s, Karachi had the tallest building in South Asia, an inner-city rail service, vibrant nightlife, and booming tourism.
But more than five decades later, the city’s infrastructure has failed to keep pace with a population that has risen more than 300 percent, leaving public services such as health, transport, and water either provided by the private sector or controlled by organized crime.
The city nevertheless remains key to Pakistan’s shaky economy.
