DADU/MIRPUR­KHAS: Heavy rainfall continued over Khirthar mountain range for a third consecutive day on Monday to aggravate flooding down into western parts of Dadu district.

Hill torrents coming from the mountains, coupled with downpour, have already resulted in heavy flooding in several UCs of Johi and Sehwan talukas. Some 200 villages in the two talukas remained cut off from Johi and Sehwan towns as deluges have submerged road links. Caravans of villages along with their luggage and animals were continuing to move to safe places.

Irrigation department’s Superintending Engineer at Dadu Iqbal Ahmed Palijo told Dawn on Monday that the Nai Gaaj dam had swollen to 10ft.

The floodwater was also entering Manchhar Lake, which had overtopped in 2022 flood in Sindh.

Flooding was reported in Sehwan, Bhan Syedabad, Khudabad, Dadu, Johi, Khairpur Nathan Shah and Mehar towns as well following the recent rainfall.

In Mirpurkhas, a 40-ft-wide breach occurred in the Chaho minor (irrigation channel) near Makhan Sammu village of Shujaabad taluka on Monday.

Water gushing out of the breach inundated hundreds of acres of land and damaged the crops grown over them.

The flooding hit clusters of houses in some villages and their residents were seen moving away from the affected areas.

A group of youths were busy plugging the breach on a self-help basis. They said the local irrigation official were informed about the breach but no one turned up to plug it.

They said the flow of deluge was so intense that it was threatening adjacent villages as well.

In the city areas, rainwater and sewage oozing out of drains accumulated in low-lying localities following two days of downpour.

Municipal employees were seen nowhere to clear the affected areas.

Flooding badly affected business, trade and commercial activities in the city. People faced great hardship in moving from one locality to the other. Vehicular traffic was also thin.

Accumulated sewage spread foul smell in the affected localities.

The power utility also failed to completely restore power supply in the city. Many areas experiences an outage of over 12 hours and many others were without power till late Monday evening.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2024