KARACHI, May 28: Animals living along the Sindh Coast have developed deformed feet due to chemical and industrial waste pouring into the sea from industries located in various areas of the city.

Director Coastal Areas, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN-Pakistan) Muhammad Tahir Qureshi told APP that salt-pans established over vast areas of the coastal belt were also contributing to the problem.

The animals become victims of the disease because of their daily movement in the toxic water along the coastal belt and the number of such animals was increasing day by day, he said.

He added that it had rather turned into a genetic disease, and now most calves were born with deformed feet. The deformed feet make it very painful for the animal to walk and they don't survive for long, he pointed out.

The IUCN official said these salt-pans had been set up at various points of the coastal belt starting from Gharo Creek to Bhit Island. The salt production from Arabian Sea had been transformed into a formal industry by leasing vast areas along the Sindh Coast over the last one decade, he informed, and mangroves over these sites were also cut for the purpose, which had left a bad impact on marine life and the coastal environment.

Mangroves have a capacity to absorb at least 25 per cent toxicity of industrial waste, Qureshi said. The IUCN official also informed that the local ocean salt, once used for kitchen purposes in Pakistan, had been declared unfit for consumption except for industrial use.

Now, he said, it was being exported to European and other countries who mostly use it as a deterrent for heavy fall of ice there. "Spreading this salt on streets and roads helps in checking dumping of ice," he said.

He said most people of the coastal localities had abandoned cattle farming, which was their supplementary source of living after fishing, which too had already diminished due to various reasons including deep-sea fishing by foreign trawlers, cutting of mangroves and the increasing sea pollution. -APP