SUKKUR, Sept 18 Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has reiterated that Tori flood protective embankment was not breached by the government but it had buckled under unprecedented pressure of floodwaters.

Talking to journalist during a visit of Tori bund near Kandhkot on Saturday, Mr Shah said that if the government had deliberately breached the bund, then area people would have held it accountable.

He congratulated the Frontier Works Organisation, irrigation department and people of Sindh on successful plugging of the breach and said the plugging of breach in Ghouspur bund would also be completed in eight to 10 days.

About procedure of Watan cards, he said, the cards were being issued to genuine flood survivors while observing extra care and transparency.

The FWO representative Brig. Amanat briefed the chief minister about the plugging work.

The breach that occurred in Tori bund on Aug 7 was the first and the most devastating that flooded a vast area including major towns and villages and inflicted losses running into millions of rupees.

It was followed by breaches in nearby Ghouspur and Haibat bund. The raging floodwaters unleashed by all these breaches played havoc in Kandhkot-Kashmore, Jacobabad, Shahdadkot and Shikarpur districts as well as vast areas in Jaffarabad and Nasirabad, the only green belt in Balochistan, before flowing into Manchhar Lake.

The floodwaters filled the lake to alarming level, forcing the authorities to make “controlled cuts” in its embankments to let out the floodwater to the Indus.

Before falling into the river, the floodwaters have inundated a large number of villages in Dadu district and damaged the Indus Highway and Karachi-Quetta railway track.

The “uncontrolled river” gushing out of the breaches has caused colossal losses to hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land and displaced millions of people.

The work on plugging the Tori bund breach was started about 22 days ago after water level in the river receded, and so far more than 3,000 feet wide breach has been plugged.

Similar work has been started at Ghouspur bund and according to Brig. Amanat, more than 50 per cent repair work has been completed while the remaining will be completed within eight to 10 days.

Our Khairpur correspondent adds The chief minister has said that about seven million people have been affected by floods in Sindh and about 200,000 of them belong to Khairpur district.

He said that the flood affected growers having 25 acres of agricultural land would be provided fertilisers and seed free of charge to enable them to cultivate land for the next season. He said this after inaugurating Nadra registration centre and Watan card distribution at the Government Comprehensive Higher Secondary School here on Saturday.

The CM directed the director general of Nadra to compare facts and figures collected by the National Disaster Management Cell from the flood affected people with the figures gathered by Sindh revenue department.