LARKANA: The Sept 13 deadline given by the Larkana district administration to over 77,000 people of the katcha belt to move to safe places passed off without any response. A constant rise in the water level at Guddu and Sukkur barrages was noted on Sunday evening and the authorities concerned said the Indus was in high flood.

Larkana Commissioner Dr Saeed Ahmed Mangnejo on Sunday confirmed that like the repeated flood warnings sounded over the past week, the appeals to the people of vulnerable areas for their voluntary shifting to safe places by Saturday remained unheeded.

Even fishermen did not cut short their ongoing activity in the Indus to escape drowning, he said.

Assistant Commissioner Dr Masood Bhutto said that teams of the district administration had been visiting the katcha areas along both banks of the Indus and warning people of the looming flood using megaphones but no family appeared ready to quit the area.

Meanwhile, relief camps have been established in many government schools while tents have been pitched for those who intend to move out of the vulnerable areas. Essential commodities have been made available at the camps and medical as well as other facilities were being arranged. Medical camps have also been established near such schools and tent villages.

At various dykes, heavy machinery was being used to strengthen and repair the anti-flood barriers.

Larkana SSP Nisar Channa said some 150 policemen equipped with communication system were deployed along the dykes to meet any eventuality.

Irrigation executive engineer Syed Noor said stone stock of 450,000 cubic feet was present at the J-Spur for use in case of an emergency. Strong currents in the past had hit and damaged the J-Spur of Nusrat dyke, he said.

SCA identifies vulnerable dykes

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has identified five locations of river dykes as vulnerable and appealed to the Sindh chief minister to ensure their immediate strengthening. It also called for the establishment of emergency centres for their strict monitoring.

An SCA meeting presided over by its president, Dr Syed Nadeem Qamar, here on Sunday described the five dykes -- Qadirpur Loop Bund and the Baiji, Panhwar-Soomra, Kot Almo and Molchand Soorjani dykes -- as vulnerable and sensitive.

The meeting demanded that irrigation officials should be directed to ensure round-the-clock monitoring of these dykes, and that flood would be reaching Guddu barrage within the next few days, so it was necessary to set up camps at vulnerable site for proper monitoring and supervision.

The meeting appreciated the chief minister’s directives to irrigation officials for regular monitoring of dykes and expressed the hope that he would take appropriate measures to ensure an improvement in the working of irrigation department.

The meeting condemned irrigation department’s move to reduce flows in canals and distributaries of Sukkur and Kotri barrages despite the fact that river Indus was in flood.

The meeting noted that tail-end growers were still facing a shortage of water for their crops.

It appealed to the chief minister to take action against those officials who had introduced the rotation programme in Sukkur and Kotri barrages’ command area to overcome the shortage.

The rotation programme was harming the province’s economy besides earning bad name to the elected government, it added.

The meeting regretted losses due to floods in the country and demanded compensation to be paid to those who have lost their crops and livestock. It said the flood-affected parts of the country should be declared ‘calamity-hit areas’ and the affected people should be exempted from all taxes.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2014