July 03, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 17, 1428

KARACHI, July 2: Hundreds of commuters are facing immense hardship as intercity bus services between Sindh and Balochistan have come to a halt after gusty winds and rains triggered by cyclone Yemyin washed away the road network.

The cyclone had hit the region on June 25, destroying the road links between the two provinces.

While hundreds of people are desperately trying in vain to catch some transport to visit their affected relatives in Balochistan, thousands of people stranded in different parts of the rain-battered province have no option but to wait for government or divine help to survive.

The business of intercity bus service has suffered a major setback due to the flash floods that have made travel between the two provinces highly risky.

A large number of buses, some of them with packed luggage compartments, are parked at the newly-built Intercity Bus Terminal in Saeedabad on Hub River Road, ready to set off to their respective destinations in Balochistan but waiting for a green signal.

‘Relatives trapped’

The desperation of intending travellers can be gauged from the fact that the terminal operators have been receiving countless telephone calls a day seeking information about when the first bus will leave for Balochistan.

However, the situation is so grim that even a tentative date could not be predicted, according to the officials at the terminal.

One of the intending travellers, Iqbal Baloch, who visited the terminal with the same query, told Dawn that he wanted to proceed to Turbat where his family members were hit by the natural calamity.

“I want to reach there as soon as possible to rescue them but cannot even enter Balochistan in the absence of some transport means,” he said, frustration writ large on his face.

According to an official of the Intercity Bus Terminal, around 150 buses leave Karachi daily for different destinations in the neighbouring province but since the suspension of the bus service on June 25, none has set off yet.

Transporters in the dark

“Four of our buses carrying passengers and their luggage were trapped in the affected areas of Agor and Hingol in Balochistan,” a transporter, Murad Jaan who operates 14 buses, told Dawn.

He said he was in constant touch with the civil administration and the police in Karachi who appeared cooperative but the response to his queries regarding the buses and passengers from the authorities in Balochistan was not satisfactory.

Mr Jaan said: “My people travelled to the affected area in bus to help the trapped passengers but the military personnel and the civil administration of Balochistan carrying out a rescue operation there did not cooperate with our men.” Ultimately, he added, they had to return to Karachi.

About the prospects of intercity bus services’ resumption, he complained: “We are not taken into confidence with regard to the situation in the calamity-hit areas… the Balochistan authorities keep telling us daily that the route will be opened tomorrow but it has remained closed for a week now and still there is no hope for its reopening in the coming days.”

Sitting deeply worried in his office at the terminal along with other equally anxious transporters, Mr Jaan said: “All of us are perturbed over the suspension of service as it has been causing us a loss of millions of rupees per day.”

He said that owing to the relevant authorities’ act of keeping transporters ill-informed about the condition of highways and roads, they could not deal properly with the passengers who had booked their seats or goods and desperately seeking some information about a precise date and time for the departure of the buses.