Clockwise from top: Water gushes out of Rawal Dam after its spillways were opened, the wall of Waqarun Nisa Girls School has collapsed, clouds hang over Islamabad and children wade through rainwater in Dhoke Khabba in Rawalpindi following rains on Wednesday.— Photos by Tanveer Shahzad, G.A. Zaidi, Online & APP
Clockwise from top: Water gushes out of Rawal Dam after its spillways were opened, the wall of Waqarun Nisa Girls School has collapsed, clouds hang over Islamabad and children wade through rainwater in Dhoke Khabba in Rawalpindi following rains on Wednesday.— Photos by Tanveer Shahzad, G.A. Zaidi, Online & APP

RAWALPINDI: Threatened by their rising water levels, slum dwellers are fleeing the banks of the Soan River and Leh Nullah in the wake of heavy rainfall in and around the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

They started moving out on Wednesday after the eight feet high boundary wall of the Government Viqarun Nisa College on Tipu Road collapsed under the pressure overnight rainfall. No one was injured in the incident.

But panic gripped slum dwellers as the onrush of water in the Soan and Leh Nullah continued after the administration opened the spillways of Rawal Dam in Islamabad. “After the latest downpour, the water level in the dam rose to 1,752 feet and the administration decided to lower it by an inch to relieve the pressure on the dam,” a senior official of the Small Dams Organization (SDO) told Dawn.

Residents of low lying areas along the Leh Nullah, such as Javed Colony, Nadeem Colony, Gowalmandi, Dhoke Hassu, Dhoke Mangtal, Hazara Colony, Pirwadhai, Khyaban-i-Sir Syed, Dhoke Dalal, Rehmatabad and Soan River colony spent a sleepless night the fearing inundation of their localities.

Safety measures were adopted and the residents were forewarned before the spillways were opened to drain excess water from the dam, according to the official.

Wednesday’s spell increased the water level in Leh Nullah to 11 feet. Low lying areas of Rawalpindi went under water, causing damage in slum areas.

The Meteorological Department, which recorded 88 millimetres of rainfall in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, has predicted more rain over the next two days.

“Another heavy spell of rain in expected in next 24 hours. However, the intensity of the spell will gradually lower on the third day,” said a Met Office official.

Unsurprisingly, the health department failed to set up flood relief camps in Rawalpindi along Leh Nullah. The last time the department did so was in 2001, when the garrison city suffered its worst monsoon floods. That year, the department established relief camps to provide emergency treatment to affected people from July 1 to September 15.

However, repair of the roads damaged by the floods, including Bostan Khan Road, Double Road and Adiala Road, could be completed only recently.

When contacted, Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) Managing Director Raja Shaukat Mehmood told Dawn that due to the de-silting of Leh Nullah, the water level did not increase enough to break the banks of the nullah.

“Wasa cleared 376,000 cubic feet of solid waste from the nullah during last two months and transferred it to the Losar landfill site,” he said.

Otherwise the rise in water level would have been higher than the 11 feet currently recorded, he added. The dangerous level at Gowalmandi Bridge is put at 24 feet.

The Wasa chief admitted that the downtown area was inundated but said the bad sewerage system was responsible. “The sewerage system in the city is old and needs to be replaced,” he said.

Meanwhile, landsliding caused by the current spell near Adiala Village caused panic among people living along the Soan River. Many residents of Gorakhpur, Adiala, Dhalla and adjoining areas have shifted to safer places fearing flooding.

A senior official of the City District Government Rawalpindi claimed that the SDO opened the spillways of Rawal Dam unannounced. “The spillways should be opened on getting a Met Office alert for rain, but there is no coordination between the district administration, the dam administration and the Met Office,” he told Dawn.

When contacted, District Coordination Officer Talat Mehmood Gondal said that soil erosion near Adiala Village did not amount to a dangerous situation as this was routine after rainfall. Then rainwater in Potohar region flows out quickly and all the low lying areas are safe.

“There is no emergency in any area of the district so far,” he said. However, the local administration had been asked to be vigilant to deal with any emergency in case of heavy rain. The standard operating procedures had been defined and conveyed to all concerned departments before the monsoon, he added.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2016

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