KARACHI: Three diggers, seven dumper trucks and a loader were spotted working non-stop, cleaning the storm water drain that caused much panic among the residents of Saadi Town.

On Friday, a very tired group of 20 Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) workers hovered around the choked storm drain, clearing it while pulling out long strands of stiff grass, straw, roots and reed. Each time after diving in the metal mouths of the three diggers emerged from under the shallow muddy water in the drain clutching bunches full of the wild growth.

“It’s a network of reed growing there, allowed to grow for years,” said one of the KMC workers supervising the operation. “We have been cleaning this area without having taken any breaks since Thursday when residents of Saadi Town from across heard about flooding here and started getting flashbacks of three years ago, which left them completely picnicked,” the KMC employee shared with Dawn. “The tickers and slides on the various news channels also aggravated the situation.”

It was in August, 2013 when floodwater wreaked havoc on Saadi Town and Sadat-i-Amroha Cooperative Housing Society near the Superhighway. Within minutes, the residents found themselves surrounded by floodwater. Water gushed into their homes and their floating parked cars banged into one another. People drowned, too, and after four days when the water started to recede there were more problems to face such as diarrhoea, sore throats, fever, itching and other skin problems.

This time a few hours of heavy rain filled up the clogged storm drain in Saadi Garden, another housing project across Saadi Town. The media flashed the news about it happening all over again which triggered panic among the residents.

“Some didn’t even wait to go check out the situation themselves. They just packed up their things and drove off,” said Rehana Sarwar, a resident of Saadi Town. “Others did go over to that side to find that the flooding was not really much. Just six inches of water. But not wanting to take any risk, they, too, fled. But one should have faith in the Almighty. We stayed put and see, nothing happened. The water never reached this side and receded from Saadi Garden alone,” she said.

“I did go to check the situation myself with the other residents when we learnt about the flooding over of the drain but the water there was only up to our ankles,” said Faizan Quraishi, who owns a butcher shop in Saadi Town. “Still, expecting the level to rise today, I brought less meat to sell at my shop, which turned out to be misjudgement on my part as nothing happened,” he said, smiling sheepishly.

Israr Khan, who lives on the other side in Saadi Garden, said he could see that the people’s fear was baseless. “Whatever happened three years ago isn’t going to happen again and again. We couldn’t be so unfortunate. So I decided to act only if something actually happened, while my wife worried. Now even she’s embarrassed about her having panicking unnecessarily,” he said.

Meanwhile, the KMC staff said they hoped to complete the cleaning exercise soon. Surprisingly, the drain has a wall blocking one side. It doesn’t pass through. “That’s also one of the causes of its choking,” said the supervisor at the spot. He also said that he thought that the drain wasn’t really a barsati nullah. He said it was more of a canal that helped carry clean water to the citizens of Karachi before the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board’s (KWSB) Greater Karachi water supply scheme K-III came about.

But KWSB managing director Misbahuddin Farid said that it was in fact a storm drain and not a canal. “Water here accumulated from whatever didn’t go to the Hub Dam after rainfall in the Kirthar Range. It passed from here to Malir Cantonment and Thado Nullah. This was before 2008 and the construction of the Northern Bypass.

But it has remained clogged for years now. It was also the reason for the 2013 floods in the area, so cleaning it is a good idea,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2016