KARACHI, Sept 9: Recent floods in northern Sindh were not a natural disaster. Rather it was a man-made disaster in which village after village was inundated just to save the lands and the crops of the influential government figures.

This was observed by Anwar Rashid, Director of the Orangi Pilot Project during a talk on the subject. Senator Rukhsana Zuberi presided over the event.

Mr Rashid, along with his team, has been working in the flood affected areas since the onset of the flooding following torrential rains in Sindh.

He informed the audience that the flood water had entered Sindh after playing havoc with lands and population in Balochistan. The flooding there was resulted from the overflowing Mirani and Bolan dams.

He was of the view that had a breach been made in the protective bund near Shahdadkot, these flood waters would have joined the Indus River only after flowing through a mere 10 kilometres natural water course. However, the local influential figures had stationed armed men along the bund to foil any such attempt just to protect their own lands.

He claimed that flood waters were made to flow across another 200 kilometres before they could flush into the Indus River. Dadu was another point where the flood waters could have been easily diverted into the river. However in order to save the lands of a federal minister, the natural course was blocked, causing inundation of hundreds of villages.

He criticised the government for failing to manage the disaster, and also the media, civil society, donors and the religious and political parties for failing to realise the situation and save an estimated 15 per cent of Sindh’s population.

“The situation is still grim though flood water is receding,” he pointed out, adding that the suffering population had to consume the same stagnant water since fresh water was not available. Diseases like gastroenteritis, malaria, skin problems, etc were spreading fast while snake-bite cases were on the rise. Medicines and vaccines for these diseases appeared very expensive, he noted, and regretted that very little budgetary allocations had been made to overcome these problems.

Mr Rashid said that the disastrous effects and after-effects of the floods might not be fully mitigated for the next five years. He observed that whatever the relief being provided by the OPP and other NGOs to the affected population was a drop in the ocean.

The scale and the magnitude of the disaster had not even been estimated in the absence of any survey by the government or the civil society with regard of the loss of life, houses, livestock, crops etc.

“There is no disaster management system either in Sindh or Balochistan,” he lamented, pointing out that masses had simply been left on their own to suffer in silence.

In her presidential remarks, Senator Rukhsana Zuberi pointed out that Sindh’s core problems were not being given the attention that they deserved in the parliament and assemblies.