SAHIWAL, May 5 Three villages came under knee-deep water following a 50-foot-wide breach on the right bank of the Lower Bari Doab Canal (LBDC) near Qadirabad. A number of shelters, movable valuables and crops were damaged in the water havoc.

Water was flowing out of the canal's broken bank for the last 17 hours (till Tuesday night). Many families immediately moved to safer places but the greater many tried to fight gushing waters to save their belongings.

Till last reports came in on Tuesday, water had already spread to nine to ten kilometres. The irrigation officials reportedly launched the rescue work four hours after receiving information as they lack heavy machinery required to plug the breach.

The district administration called out the army which joined the rescue operation.

Villagers demanded an inquiry into what they said negligence of the irrigation employees and compensation for the damaged wheat crop.

According to an eyewitness, a small hole developed at the LBDC right bank near Qadirabad (between Burgee 276-277) around 3am on Tuesday. An hour and a half later, he said, water splashed out of the canal and the breach widened and in less than two hours spilled onto surrounding slums at chaks 60/4-R & 62/4-R.

Sensing danger, the villagers sheltered around the LBDC bank moved along with their cattle and belongings to safer places. Irrigation employees reached there around 8am, the eyewitness said.

Although irrigation officials claimed that they had conveyed to the authorities that water had been blocked at 630am, many villagers Dawn spoke to alleged that the local irrigation higher-ups reached the spot at 830am.

Commissioner Tariq Mahmood Khan and DCO Muhammad Khan Khichi supervised the bank's repair work. Later, the commissioner called out the army to assist the irrigation department and district administration officials.

This correspondent visited the site and saw many farmers crying over the loss of their wheat.

“They didn't have time to shift wheat from fields to any safer place,” Abdul Majeed, a UC 62/4-R member, informed Dawn.

An army official told Dawn that it would take another seven to eight hours to plug the breach.

Malik Rub Nawaz, the sub-engineer, confirmed that the breach would be plugged during the night.

He said six branch canals of the LBDC in Okara district had been opened so as to reduce the water pressure.

“So far no loss of life is reported but the damage to property and standing crops will be assessed after the water subsides,” he said.

Many were the families who were left to stay in the open. “We have to remain stranded until water goes down,” Muhammad Jamil of Malahwala Basti told Dawn. He is one of the nearly 10,000 people, including women and children, feared to be hit by water ravage.