A 28-year-old man died while another was injured in separate incidents as yet another spell of rain accompanied by gusty winds battered parts of Karachi on Thursday, hospital officials said.
Salahuddin lost his life after suffering an electric shock at Raheel Arcade in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar area. The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) to fulfil legal formalities.
In another incident, a 30-year-old man, identified as Anwar, suffered head injuries when a billboard fell on him near the Avari Towers hotel. He was shifted to the JPMC for first aid. Dr Seemin Jamali said his condition was out of danger.
In the last spell of monsoon showers last week that lasted two days, at least eight people had died in various rain-related incidents in the metropolis, mostly due to electrocution. On Thursday, Karachiites took to social media to share pictures and videos from the rain that brought cool winds after days of hot and humid weather.
However, some residents reported that rainwater had accumulated on roads in a matter of minutes after the rain started. The Pakistan Meteorological Department had earlier this week issued an urban flooding warning for Karachi and Hyderabad in which it predicted a monsoon spell in Sindh and parts of Balochistan from Thursday (today) to Saturday (August 8). To prevent the roads from being inundated as seen during last week’s heavy rains, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has been working to clean Karachi’s major storm-water drains on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s directives. On Tuesday, the NDMA had said in a statement that during the large-scale desilting of the city’s nullahs being carried out by the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and the Sindh government, 4,364 tonnes of sludge was removed.
