QUETTA: Dawood Khan, 18, took a moment before he dived into a cold, fresh water pool in southwest Pakistan to cool off his body as mercury rose to 40 degrees Celsius in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, last week.
Khan, a resident of Quetta’s Pashtoonabad neighborhood, traveled on a motorbike some 34 kilometers to Hanna Urrak valley along with his friends to freshen up their bodies and minds in the blistering weather.
The 18-year-old was among dozens of Quetta residents who formed queues and awaited their turns to jump into the pool surrounded with trees after they escaped a prolonged power breakdown in Quetta.
“We haven’t witnessed that much heat in the last 10 years. The temperature has risen to 40 degrees Celsius which is unbearable for us,” Khan told Arab News on Friday.
“We have come here (Hanna Urrak valley) with friends to spend eight, nine hours in this water pool. We will return home in the evening.”
Pakistan has been in the grip of intense heat since May, with temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius in southern parts of the country, which ranks among 10 most vulnerable nations to climate change.
Despite the hot weather, most rural areas of Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and most impoverished province, have been braving up to 18-hour power outages a day, while residents of Quetta face up to eight-hour power cuts. The provincial government often accuses the federal government of not providing Balochistan’s due share of electricity, while the federation blames the outages on power theft.
In the mountainous Hanna Urrak valley, natural water fountains and swimming pools constructed by local tribesmen tempt residents of Quetta during the summer months.
Muhammad Ismail, an 18-year-old resident of Quetta’s Hazar Ganji area, said they had come out of their homes and traveled this far to visit the valley and refresh themselves by bathing in the fresh water pool.
“There is too much load-shedding in Quetta,” he told Arab News. “Hence, we decided to travel to Hanna Urrak rather than staying at home.”
In 2022, unprecedented monsoon floods washed away a majority of these privately-owned swimming pools. However, three of them survived the destruction and are still functional, attracting swarms of people from Quetta and other parts of Balochistan as well as the neighboring Sindh province to the famous summer spot.
Abdul Malik, who owns one of the swimming pools, said people visited the valley for picnic and loved swimming in these small, fresh water pools. “I have constructed this pool for the residents of Quetta which has been providing me with income for my children,” the 60-year-old said.
Describing the ongoing summer season as the “hottest ever,” Malik said people visited Hanna Urrak valley and his pool from as far as Sindh’s Sukkur and Jacobabad districts. “We charge them 100 rupees ($0.36) with unlimited swimming time,” he added.
Taufique Ahmed, 16, who came from Sukkur, said he had been swimming in the pool for the last six hours to beat the scorching heat. “I am here in Quetta to avoid sizzling temperatures in my home city, but the weather has turned fiery in Quetta as well,” Ahmed added.
The weather in Quetta and other parts of Pakistan is rapidly changing due to the impact of climate change, increase in humidity and a lack of tree plantation, according to Mukhtar Magsi, a deputy director at the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) in Quetta.
“People should be given awareness of the changing weather patterns and they should be encouraged for tree plantation because the temperatures will further rise in the future,” Magsi warned.
In southwest Pakistan, people turn to fresh water pools to beat the heat
https://arab.news/vqe2h
In southwest Pakistan, people turn to fresh water pools to beat the heat
- Pakistan has been in the grip of intense heat since May, with temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius in southern parts of the country
- Residents of Pakistan’s Balochistan province visit fresh water pools in mountainous Hanna Urrak valley to escape the heat, power cuts
Multi-party summit pushes for talks between Pakistan government, opposition to ease tensions
- National Dialogue Committee group organizes summit attended by prominent lawyers, politicians and journalists in Islamabad
- Participants urge government to lift alleged ban on political activities, end politically motivated cases and release women prisoners
ISLAMABAD: Participants of a meeting featuring prominent politicians, lawyers and civil society members on Wednesday urged the government to initiate talks with former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, lift alleged bans on political activities and release jailed leaders of the PTI to foster reconciliation and pave the way for economic prosperity.
The summit was organized by the National Dialogue Committee (NDC), a political group formed last month by former PTI members Chaudhry Fawad Husain, ex-Sindh governor Imran Ismail and Mehmood Moulvi. The NDC has called for efforts to ease political tensions in the country and facilitate dialogue between the government and Khan’s party.
The development takes place amid rising tensions between the PTI and Pakistan’s military and government. Khan, who remains in jail on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, blames the military and the government for colluding to keep him away from power by rigging the 2024 general election and implicating him in false cases. Both deny his allegations.
Since Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote in April 2022, the PTI has complained of a widespread state crackdown, while Khan and his senior party colleagues have been embroiled in dozens of legal cases. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last month reiterated his openness to talks with the PTI.
“The prime objective of the dialogue is that we want to bring the political temperatures down,” Ismail told Arab News after the conference concluded.
“At the moment, the heat is so much that people— especially in politics— they do not want to sit across the table and discuss the pertaining issues of Pakistan which is blocking the way for investment.”
Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who heads the Awaam Pakistan political party, attended the summit along with Jamaat-e-Islami senior leader Liaquat Baloch, Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan’s Waseem Akhtar and Haroon
Rasheed, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. Journalists Asma Shirazi and Fahd Husain also attended the meeting.
Members of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the PTI did not attend the gathering.
Muhammad Ali Saif, a former adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, told participants of the meeting that Pakistan was currently in a “dysfunctional state” due to extreme political polarization.
“The tension between the PTI and the institutions, particularly the army, at the moment is the most fundamental, the most prominent and the most crucial issue,” Saif noted.
‘CHANGED FACES’
The summit issued a joint communiqué after the meeting, proposing six specific confidence-building measures. These included lifting an alleged ban on political activities and the appointment of the leaders of opposition in Pakistan’s Senate and National Assembly.
It also called for the immediate release of women political prisoners, such as Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and PTI leader Yasmin Rashid, and the withdrawal of cases against supporters of political parties.
The communiqué also called for an end to media censorship and proposed that the government and opposition should “neither use the Pakistan Armed Forces for their politics nor engage in negative propaganda against them.”
Amir Khan, an overseas Pakistani businessperson, complained that frequent political changes in the country had undermined investors’ confidence.
“I came here with investment ideas, I came to know that faces have changed after a year,” Amir Khan said, referring to the frequent change in government personnel.
The NDC plans to consult senior opposition leaders currently in prison to finalize a representative committee for talks once the government announces its own team.
“Let us create some environment. Let us bring some temperatures down and then we will do it,” Ismail said regarding a potential meeting with the jailed Khan.
Khan’s party, on the other hand, has been calling for a “meaningful” political dialogue with the government.
However, it has accused the government of denying PTI members meetings with Khan in the Rawalpindi prison where he remains incarcerated.
“For dialogue to be meaningful, it is essential that these authorized representatives are allowed regular and unhindered access to Imran Khan so that any engagement accurately reflects his views and PTI’s collective position,” PTI leader Azhar Leghari told Arab News last week.
