EVERY year, Karachi’s beaches are witness to deaths by drowning, the grief of the survivors often being compounded by the fact that tragedy strikes when a family or a group of friends are out on an excursion. On Tuesday, six swimmers drowned in two separate incidents near Hawkesbay beach and the Do Darya area of the city, taking the death toll to about a dozen in just three days. The city administration has reacted by imposing Section 144 — which lays curbs on the assembly of people — to ban swimming in the sea. But if the past is any guide, it will be people’s access to the beach that will be curtailed through police pickets. This method has been employed since 2014, when upwards of two dozen people drowned in July during the brief Eidul Fitr break. Even so, reports of deaths continued to trickle in that year and in the years that followed, for people make it to the coast one way or the other.

It needs to be accepted that a ban is no long-term solution, and amounts to punishing the citizenry in times of electricity shortages combined with fierce temperatures. Besides, there is the perennial dearth of recreational facilities. The city must come up with long-term measures, including beefing up the number of lifeguards on duty — a task that is currently largely left to the non-governmental sector. Also vital are public-awareness campaigns because even where lifeguards are present or safety warnings have been put up, people often tend to ignore the advice of those who are aware of the dangers posed by the sea. Further, there is an urgent need to conduct research on how the city’s many land-reclamation projects, and recent constructions such as high-rise buildings on the shoreline and the deep-sea port, may have altered the sea currents, perhaps rendering some beaches more dangerous than before. The people of Karachi must have the right of access to the beaches — but in safety.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2017