July 30, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 29, 1424

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KARACHI, July 29: Water from the Hub dam’s 30 square-mile long reservoir on Tuesday night started overflowing from its 6,020 feet long spillway towards Arabian Sea after crossing its full supply mark of 339 feet.

Earlier, water from the dam’s spillway which has been designed to flow with a maximum discharge of 4,58,000 cusecs had overflowed in 1984, 1989, 1992, 1994 and lastly in 1995 when water had spilled up to seven feet.

Water level in the reservoir during last two days increased by 16 feet and went up from 323.7 feet on Monday 339 feet on Tuesday night in the wake of current torrential rains being received in its 3,410 square miles catchment area which consists of Dadu district, Kirthar National Park, Saruna, Duraji, Shah Noorani area in Balochistan.

WAPDA CHIEF: Wapda’s chairman, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, who is scheduled to reach here in the wee hours of Wednesday will visit the dam on Wednesday to monitor the situation arising out of overflowing water from the dam’s spillway.

The Wapda officials manning the Hub dam project, rushed to the dam’s site on Tuesday night, told Dawn that they had already sent an SOS call to Balochistan and the city governments for taking precautionary measures.

“We have already declared alert in the area and through announcements being made from a nearby mosque villagers are being requested to shift to some safer places,” the Hub dam officials said.

“In fact, a number of villagers residing in the low-lying areas of Hub river have already shifted to some safer places,” they added.

Asked how much water Karachi could draw from the Hub source after its reservoir had attained its fully supply level of 339 feet, the sources in the city government said that now the city could continue to draw 100 mgd of water from it for the next three years and at the rate of 50 mgd for six long years.

Water from the dam is supplied to the areas hooked to the Hub and these include Orangi, Baldia, Surjani Town, Saeedabad, Mianwalli Colony, Qasba and different sectors of North Karachi.