KARACHI: Dusty winds turn city beach into ‘no-go’ area
By Bhagwandas
KARACHI, June 5: Till a few years back, it was really fun to spend a few hours at the Clifton beach, but with the gradual receding of the sea and reclamation of land have turned even a brief visit to the beach into a horrible experience, especially in monsoons.
The Clifton-Sea-view section of the beach these days has become a desert where winds carrying sand blow at a disturbing speed and force the visitors to rush to safety.
The breeze picks the sand from the wide dry portion of beach land and lashes it on the road running along the coast, and also across the road to hit the residential areas. For the residents of these areas, the ‘sand storm’, as some people put it, is a trauma during the season. They would come out of this trauma only if the city receives rains to settle the sand on the beach. For picnickers also, the situation is unbearable making the beach ‘no-go area’.
The problem of dusty breeze starts in May and the only respite is brought by rains. However, the situation is getting from bad to worse with each passing year due to certain factors.
The Nature alone is not responsible. Local residents say that the problem had started when a portion of the beach land opposite the Phase-VIII of the DHA was reclaimed causing diversion of the waves hitting the coast with blowing winds.
They maintained that the process of dumping the earth, lifted from the reclamation site or other places, along the beach resulted in gradually thickening layers of sand which ultimately attained the height of four-five feet, forcing the sea to recede.
They recall that a few decades back, waves generated by winds in monsoons had been hitting the stone-pitched boundary of the beach along the Beach Avenue and high tides had been crossing the boundary. However, with the sea now having receded by 50-100 feet permanently, not only the width of the beach has widened but it has also been rendered dry. Much of its land between the boundary and the sea never gets wet, by in high tide days.
Wahid Bux Chang, who has been visiting the Sea-view Beach almost daily for jogging for about a decade now, told Dawn that sandy breeze would blow in the past also, but the situation had been getting worse with every passing year. About his experience of jogging amid sandy breeze, he said: “I feel as if I am on a safari in Sahara desert.” Some measures ought to be taken in this regard, he added.
Qadir Baloch, who offers horse riding at the beach, remembered that a few years back, rider would face no problem in crossing the small bridge, between a restaurant and a platform on the beach, through its underpass as it had enough height. However, the dumping of sand has decreased the space to the extent that it had become difficult even for the horse to pass through it.
A resident of the Sea-view Apartments, Shakeel Ahmad, said: “We could not consider opening the windows of our house during this season as the sand would break into it and lash everything inside.
Residents of the area say that the situation could not improve until a proper beach management plan was implemented.
