KARACHI, June 24: The city government and the administrations of Karachi’s 18 towns were battling hard to cope with the situation that arose after a thunderstorm and heavy rain whipped the city on Saturday, as conditions were compounded by an electricity crisis. It seemed that the entire civic infrastructure of the city may collapse in case of one more spell of rain.
The main job confronting the civic agencies was the drainage of rainwater and the removal of uprooted trees and billboards from various thoroughfares, which caused the deaths of a number of people and damaged property, besides creating obstructions in the flow of traffic.
As far as the power crisis is concerned, both the provincial and local governments were helpless in minimising the hardship of the citizens thanks to the KESC’s ill-maintained transmission and distribution system, which collapsed with the beginning of Saturday’s thunderstorm. Snapped electrical wires also delayed the work of removing uprooted trees in some areas.
City Nazim Mustafa Kamal visited various localities to monitor the rescue work being carried out by the city and town governments. He, along with provincial minister Dr Saghir Ahmed, visited the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital to inquire about the health of injured persons and announced that the city government would bear all expenses for their treatment.
Later in the evening the city nazim announced financial help for the families of those killed in rain-related accidents. The city government will give an amount of Rs100,000 to the heirs of the deceased who had a livelihood while the families of children, women and the jobless will be given Rs50,000 compensation each.
GADAP TOWN: Gadap Town was among the worst-affected towns of Karachi where scores of people died due to electrocution and incidents of roof collapse.
Gadap Town Naib Nazim Abdul Sattar Brohi told Dawn that since last night (Saturday night) the whole town administration was busy in relief activities.
“Some 350 to 400 houses were badly damaged due to the thunderstorm and 23 people have been killed. We have established one relief camp in each union council and have shifted hundreds of families there,” he added.
He strongly criticised the provincial and city governments for abandoning the people of Gadap Town as none of their representative bothered to visit any of the UCs of the town.
HOARDINGS: The city nazim said that the hoardings that had fallen during the rainstorm were not in the limits of the city government. “Only four billboards fell in our jurisdiction and no one got (as much as) a scratch (from) this,” he claimed.
He said that more than 13 organisations in Karachi are providing municipal services and the city government controls only 34 per cent of the whole city. “Anticipating the danger, we had already removed 3,200 illegal and large-size hoardings. Only 260 billboards were approved to be installed in our limits in accordance with the approved by-laws of the City Council,” he said.
He clarified that the billboards that fell on Sharea Faisal did not come within the city government’s jurisdiction.
KARACHI, June 24: The city government and the administrations of Karachi’s 18 towns were battling hard to cope with the situation that arose after a thunderstorm and heavy rain whipped the city on Saturday, as conditions were compounded by an electricity crisis. It seemed that the entire civic infrastructure of the city may collapse in case of one more spell of rain.
