ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 The ruins of Moenjodaro and Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, where prime ministers Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto are buried are directly in the path of the rampaging floods, officials warned on Monday.
They said the floodwaters were now at the town of Larkana, threatening the nearby Bhutto family mausoleum, a huge marble structure topped with domes, and the sprawling Moenjodaro, one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus valley civilisation, a Unesco world heritage site.
Rediscovered in 1922, Moenjodaro was one of the most sophisticated cities of its time. The water is closing in both from the Indus river and from a breach in an irrigation canal further north.
The Bhutto mausoleum resembles the Taj Mahal and can be seen from miles around. It contains the remains of Benazir Bhutto, assassinated in 2007, and her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and her two murdered brothers.
“Unfortunately the water is going in that direction [towards Garhi Khuda Bakhsh and Moenjodaro],” Sindh Irrigation Minister Saifullah Dharejo said. “We'll try everything possible to save these sites.”On Sunday the floodwaters spread further from the Indus, drowning the town of Dera Allah Yar and the surrounding area in the Jaffarabad district of Balochistan, which had been inhabited by about 300,000 people. The area was said to be under two metres of water.
The Dera Allah Yar situation highlighted inter-province tensions over the floods. There were allegations by leaders in Balochistan that authorities in Sindh had deliberately diverted water towards their province, leading to an armed confrontation between officials and tribesmen of the two provinces.
The floods, beginning late last month, have left six million people facing starvation. The UN said 875,000 homes had been damaged or destroyed. Many areas had all their crops washed away. It is thought 1,600 people have been killed.
The death toll could rise rapidly from disease and hunger. Anecdotal evidence is surfacing of babies and young children dying from diarrhoea and malnutrition.—Dawn-Guardian News Service