KARACHI: Moderate to heavy rainfall on Tuesday brought the city to a standstill, as it flooded numerous roads and streets and plunged several neighbourhoods into extended power outages, adding to residents’ woes.

According to the Met department data, the highest amount of rainfall was 34mm in the Old Airport area, followed by PAF Faisal Base, 29mm; DHA Phase VII, 27mm; Gulshan-i-Hadeed, 25mm; Jinnah Terminal, 21mm; Korangi, 20.5mm; Bahria Town, 9.2mm; Met Office (University Road), 8.4mm; Keamari, 7.5mm; Nazimabad, 1.4mm; PAF Masroor, 1mm; and North Karachi, 1mm.

The afternoon downpour lashed the entire city and triggered widespread traffic chaos. Major thoroughfares such as I.I. Chundrigar Road, M.A. Jinnah Road, and Sharea Faisal were choked with bumper-to-bumper traffic, forcing vehicles to crawl at a snail’s pace.

The situation on other major streets, including Jahangir Road, Abdullah Haroon Road, Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road, Korangi Road, Clifton Road and University Road, was far worse, with commuters waiting for hours to move ahead.

Hundreds of motorcycles and automobiles broke down due to inundated roads, with bikers dragging their two-wheelers and motorists abandoning their broken-down vehicles along the footpaths.

District South, a hub for provincial and federal governments, multinational companies, and banks, bore the brunt of the rain-induced chaos.

With public transport scarce, auto-rickshaw operators took advantage of the situation by overcharging stranded commuters, particularly women. A bank employee on I.I. Chundrigarh Road shared her frustrating experience as she had to pay Rs500 to reach her home in Soldier Bazar.

People had to wait for over an hour to get out of the traffic mess, especially in areas like Shaheen Complex, PIDC, Metropole Hotel, and Saddar.

In some low-lying localities, such as Lyari and downtown, rainwater flooded homes, while in other areas, it formed stagnant ponds and puddles forcing residents to place bricks to create makeshift pathways and avoid wading through filthy rainwater mixed with sewage as overflowing gutters added to the chaos.

While several localities remained without power, the K-Electric, the sole power utility of the city, said that its network remained stable and less than 175 of 2,100 feeders saw a temporary outage mainly due to safety reasons.

It said that the affected feeders were also quickly restored as rain stopped and safety clearances were received from the field teams.

Moderate rain likely today

Karachi and several cities of Sindh received the rain under the influence of a weather system currently prevailing in the region.

“The well-marked low pressure area over Gulf of Cambay and adjoining Gujrat (India) has moved west northwestward and now lay over Saurashtra, Gujrat (India) about 340Km southeast of Karachi.

“The system is likely to move west/southwestwards and emerge over northeast Arabian Sea along Gulf of Kuch by late night/ tomorrow (Wednesday) morning,” the department’s advisory says.

It further adds that the system is likely to intensify further into a depression by tomorrow due to favorable environmental conditions, sea surface temperature, low/moderate vertical wind shear and upper-level divergence.

“Under its influence, wind-thunderstorm/rain of light to moderate intensity is likely in Tharparkar, Umerkot, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Badin, Shaheed Benazirabad, Naushahro Feroze, Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Thatta, Sujawal, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Allayar, Matiari districts and Karachi division on Wednesday.

It warns that sea conditions are likely to remain rough/very rough with squally winds 45-55km/hour and advises fishermen not to venture into deep sea till Oct 2.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2025