KARACHI, June 24: Chairperson Subh-i-Nau, an environment and public health concern, Shahida Kausar Farooq, has expressed concern over frequent and longer power breakdowns as well as unannounced power load shedding in Karachi putting the citizens to inconvenience during rising temperatures and suffocating atmosphere.

In a statement issued on Friday, Shahida Kausar said that people, particularly women and children, were experiencing miserable days and nights in the wake of power breakdowns during scorching heat. The situation is unbearable for students making preparations for examinations and the people suffering from sickness and disease, particularly heart patients.

She maintained that she had forewarned the occurrence of such a situation and had, at so many occasions, highlighted the importance of tree plantation for developing an environment which could save people from increasingly hot days.

Shahida Kausar said that had there been massive tree plantation in Karachi, the environmental situation here would have been totally different from what it was today.

She said diminishing trees, especially the mangroves, had brought a change in weather conditions. She was of the view that poisonous emissions from buses and rickshaws had greatly contributed towards the rise in temperature as well as weather phenomenon. —APP