At least five more people lost their lives as the second straight day of moderate to heavy rain turned many roads in Karachi into rivers on Monday, a private TV channel reported.
Most areas of the provincial capital remained inundated with rainwater as heavy rainfall caused citizens to suffer due to urban flooding, prolonged power outages, and traffic jams. Residents took to social media to vent their anger about the devastation caused by the showers and shared videos that showed rainwater mixed with sewage surging through narrow alleys, people using boats to cross roads and cars floating away on flooded roads as if they were made of plastic.
According to the Met Office, Karachi on Monday received a maximum 34mm of rain in Nazimabad, University Road/Jauhar (10.2mm), North Karachi (8.8mm), Karachi MOS (1.8mm), Jinnah Terminal (0.8mm), Surjani (0.4mm). Many other areas including Saddar, Landhi and Gulshan-i-Hadeed did not receive any rain.
The three people who died all lost their lives due to electrocution, officials said. On Sunday, at least five people, including two children, had died in various rain-related incidents in the metropolis.
On a visit to different areas of the city, Sindh Minister for Information and Local Government Nasir Hussain Shah appeared to defend the provincial government’s efforts, saying torrential rainfall manifests itself in the form of a “natural calamity”, which he said “no human being has control over”. While conceding that the situation is “not 100 per cent”, Shah claimed that the Sindh government has been implementing emergency measures for the last several months under a “comprehensive and integrated policy”. “We have no hesitation in saying that if the Sindh government had not taken timely steps to clean storm-water drains, the situation could have been even worse,” he added, and appealed to the people not to leave their homes unnecessarily and stay away from electricity poles.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) had last week forecast the third spell of monsoon in Karachi with heavy rain and thunderstorm in the port city between July 26 and July 27. Despite an earlier prediction of the third spell of monsoon by the Metrological Department, the administration failed to make the arrangements to tackle the long-sought issue of urban flooding in the port city.
