| July 14, 2005 | Thursday | Jumadi-us-Sani 6, 1426 |
Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
Flood water & Kalabagh
VVIPs and traffic blues
THE tragic triple-train accident near Ghotki yesterday in which, according to Pakistan Railway sources, at least 130 people were killed and hundreds more injured has shocked the nation. The disaster took place in the early hours of Wednesday when, according to the Pakistan Railways’ general manager, the Karachi Express conductor misread a signal, causing the train to ram into a stationary Quetta Express at the Sarhad station. Many carriages of the two trains were derailed as a result of the collision, which then rolled over and hit Tezgam, another express train passing through the station at that time. The railway authorities have ordered an inquiry into the disaster, insisting for the time being that it was a case of misjudgment on the part of the conductor. The scene following the accident has been one of carnage, with bodies scattered across the tracks and survivors looking for their near and dear ones as rescue workers cut through twisted metal to get the injured out. Mercifully, emergency help reached the site of the crash in good time and many lives were saved by transporting the injured to various hospitals, otherwise the death toll would have been much higher.
The latest disaster comes as a sequel to at least two major train accidents that have taken place in the upper Sindh area in the past. In 1990 a similar collision at Sanghi resulted in the death of 307 people; another one the following year claimed 50 lives at Ghotki. The high number of casualties involved in train accidents in the PR’s Sukkur division raises certain questions: is it the tracks there that are particularly vulnerable to such tragedies? Is it the railway equipment and signals that are old and unreliable? Or is it the train timings that result in the crisscrossing of several trains through the area at a time when the stations concerned are not adequately equipped and staffed to deal with a high flow of traffic? These questions can only be answered after the inquiry in question has been conducted into Wednesday’s fatal crash. There is also the need to make the investigation report public — something that has been missing in the past.
The authorities would do well to probe all aspects, human as well as technical, that might have resulted in the latest tragedy. The upper Sindh area is a busy transit point of train crossings during the early hours of the day, making it is necessary for the PR to man the stations with a good number of well-trained and adequately rested signalling staff. The possibility of human error on the part of train drivers, too, should be taken into account. Do they get enough rest between one scheduled train and the next on their roster? The three express trains involved in Wednesday’s crash are among the most preferred in the country. The railway authorities should look into the timings of these trains which brought them into each other’s paths and caused the tragedy. A thorough investigation and re-evaluation of all these factors is necessary to restore the public’s confidence in the railway system, which has been on a downward spiral for the past decade or so. The introduction of fast trains using what is generally believed to be a crumbling infrastructure, and the level of training of the railway staff, must also be re-evaluated.
PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf’s view that the floods now ravaging parts of the country could have been avoided if the Kalabagh dam had been built points to this government’s commitment to the construction of a big dam on the Indus upstream. The flood water going into the sea may appear to go waste. But it also does some good. As ecologists tell us, lack of enough Indus water going into the sea has affected Sindh’s coastal areas and communities. Mangrove forests are in danger of extinction, and the sea water has moved up. The resulting salination has rendered large tracts of farm lands useless and hurt many coastal communities. No wonder, a vast majority of agriculturists in Sindh are opposed to the Kalabagh dam. This is, however, one way of looking at it; the other is the obvious need for a big dam because the country needs more water for power generation as well as for agriculture. Already there is a big gap in demand and supply of electricity. Not only must this deficit be filled, the country should have more power for industry and its fast-expanding population. Thermal power being costly, there is no choice except that we must rely on nuclear energy or hydroelectric power. Nuclear power stations, too, are costly and have political and environmental implications. This brings us back to a dam on the Indus.
As we have repeatedly emphasized in this space, there must be a national consensus on the issue before work on a big dam begins. The concerns of the small provinces should be removed. Without such a consensus, the dam has the potential to turn into a major political controversy that could have larger consequences. The onus lies on the federal government to convince the small provinces of the economic need for a major hydro-electric project. Regrettably, some politicians are prone to politicizing the issue. This will serve no one’s cause. Essentially, opposition to the dam must be based on solid technical arguments — like the feared fall in the quantum of irrigation water to lower riparians, the extent of the area being inundated in the NWFP, the threat to mangrove forests and the ecological damage to the coast. It should be a dialogue basically among hydrological experts which alone can form the basis of a political consensus among the provinces.
WHENEVER there is real traffic chaos in Karachi, you can be sure that either the president or prime minister is visiting the city. The last three days’ mayhem on the roads is no exception. The sight of roads being blocked, heavy deployment of traffic police, various petrol stations and shops being closed, the frustration written on commuters’ faces — all this has become all too familiar for Karachi residents. The insufferable delays for commuters caught in unending traffic jams have now assumed frustrating dimensions. The rigour is compounded by the blabber of traffic police personnel who think that news reports of the jams are exaggerated and that delays on such occasions never exceed 20 minutes. While it may be true that roads are cordoned off for, say, 15 minutes, it can take quite a few hours for a traffic tangle to clear out after the VVIP has come and gone. Moreover, petrol stations that fall on the route of VVIP movements are forced to shut down for security reasons and no one thinks of compensating them for the loss they suffer and the inconvenience caused to motorists.
There is no question but that the president and prime minister need heavy security, especially since both have had attempts on their lives. But it is unfair that any city should be paralyzed during their presence there. Their movements on such occasions can be organized in a way that avoids large-scale disruptions of traffic and that too for long hours. Basically it is a question of timing as well as professional planning and management on the part of the traffic authorities. Given these, it is certainly possible to ensure maximum security for the visiting VVIPs without throwing the city into utter chaos.