KARACHI: Authorities in Pakistan’s Sindh said on Saturday that floodwater rushing downstream from the eastern Punjab province pose no major threat to the southern province.
The floodwaters have been rushing southwards to Sindh after devastating Punjab, where 97 people have been killed and submerging over two million acres of farmland has been submerged since late August.
The inflow of water was 537,220 cusecs at Guddu Barrage on the Indus river, 460,490 cusecs at Sukkur Barrage and 261,234 cusecs at Kotri Barrage in Sindh, according to the provincial information department.
Syed Salman Shah, head of the Sindh Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), acknowledged that some villages in Sindh’s Dadu district have been inundated, but the situation is “not alarming.”
“The situation in Sindh is not alarming... We have identified 1,651 such villages across Sindh that could be partially inundated in case of a water flow of 700,000 cusecs,” he told Arab News.
“The residents of these villages have already been evacuated and shifted to safe locations, where they are being provided with health care, food, and other facilities.”
Shah said riverside villages in Sindh were likely to be affected if the water flows reached 700,000 cusecs.
“But since these homes are built at height after the last floods [in 2010], there may be no damages to these villages,” he said.
The floods resulted from unusually high rains and India’s release of excess water that swelled Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers in Punjab, which travel southwards to merge in the Indus river in Sindh.
The deluges have affected more than 4,500 villages and over 4.4 million people in Punjab, the country’s breadbasket province, according to Relief Commissioner Punjab Nabeel Javed. Rescuers have so far transported 2.4 million people and 19.1 million livestock to relief camps after rescuing them from marooned villages in several districts.
On Saturday, the Pakistani military, which has been engaged in rescue and relief activities, said Army Chief Field Marshall Asim Munir visited flood-affected areas of Kasur and Jalalpur Pirwala in Punjab to review the prevailing flood situation and ongoing relief efforts.
“The visit to flood affected areas of Kasur and Multan focused on enhancing synergy between the civil administration and the military to ensure effective assistance for the affected population,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing.
Monsoon season brings Pakistan up to 80 percent of its annual rainfall, but increasingly erratic and extreme weather patterns are turning the annual rains, which are vital for agriculture, food security and the livelihoods of millions of farmers, into a destructive force.
Rains, floods, landslides and similar incidents have killed at least 946 people nationwide since June 26, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The disaster has revived memories of the 2022 deluges, when a third of the country was submerged, over 1,700 people were killed and losses exceeded $35 billion.
