KARACHI: At least 23 picnickers drowned in rough seas off Karachi during the Eid holiday, with the authorities blaming people for ignoring a warning against swimming during the monsoon season.

Officials said on Thursday that 21 bathers had drowned at Clifton’s Sea View beach and two at the Hawkesbay.

The officials and rescue personnel said that this was the highest death toll on Karachi’s beaches in recent memory. The officials put the onus on picnickers for not being careful while swimming in rough seas amid poor security and administrative arrangements.

Authorities put onus on picnickers for ignoring warning against swimming in rough seas

Drowning incidents, especially during July and August, are not uncommon, but it is the first time that Sea View, which is regarded as a relatively safe point, swallowed so many lives.

Navy helicopters were used in the rescue operation because it was difficult for divers to retrieve the bodies in high tide.

“I can confirm the death of 22 people,” Karachi South Zone DIG Barrister Abdul Khalique Shaikh said. Seventeen of the bodies have been identified.

Police sources told Dawn that Section 144 had not been imposed on the sea side, adding that the Sindh Home Department had issued a notification about this with a back date and it was received by the offices of IG, DIG South and SSP South on Thursday morning.

“We received bodies of 23 men at two hospitals on Tuesday night and Wednesday,” said police surgeon Dr Jalil Qadir. The bodies were retrieved from Sea View and Hawkesbay. They all were youths.

Dr Qadir said that 12 of the corpses recovered from Sea View on Wednesday were partially decomposed. The time lag between their death and retrieval was 20-30 hours, suggesting that they drowned at different times.

Most of the relatives took away the bodies without allowing doctors to fulfil legal or medical formalities.

Edhi Foundation’s spokesperson Anwar Kazmi recalled that several people had drowned at Clifton in the early 1990s, but their deaths were mostly caused by hitting the wreckage of ships near the beach.

He said Clifton beach used to be small and safe, but it became dangerous after Sea View was developed and a wall erected there, hampering flow of the tide. Because of the wall, waves reach up to Kothari Parade, making the beach unsafe.

Mr Kazmi said the first four to six minutes were crucial to save the life of a drowning man, but during high tide even divers could not be of much help. “Public awareness and netting of beaches on the pattern of Australia are the only way to save lives,” he suggested.

COMMITTEE SET UP: IG Ghulam Hyder Jamali constituted a high-powered committee under Additional IG Karachi Ghulam Qadir Thebo to investigate the incident, ascertain facts and fix responsibility.

According to a police spokesperson, the committee will submit its report within 24 hours. DIG South Abdul Khalique Shaikh, DIG East Munir Ahmed Shaikh and SSP security are other members of the committee.

The IG also suspended the area SHO and removed DSP Darakshan.

AFP adds: Senior police officer Ibadat Nisar said police had discovered three bodies that washed up at Clifton on Wednesday evening. This prompted a wider search operation, but it was suspended overnight. It resumed on Thursday.

“We started talking to picnickers on the beach and realised that the number of people who drowned was much higher than we thought; people whom we talked to told us about their friends or relatives who had gone missing while swimming,” he said.

Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, the Commissioner of Karachi, said “We have just recovered another dead body and the toll now stands at 21. The coastal area is very long and we cannot say how many people might be still missing – let’s hope the number is not very big.”

Several ambulances were seen on the beach, where relatives of some of the missing were anxiously awaiting word of their loved ones.

Faiz Rehman, 32, said he and his younger brother had come to the beach on Wednesday to go for a swim along with two friends who were now missing.

He said: “As we were swimming, I noticed the waves getting bigger and rougher. I got scared and started swimming back. I also called my brother and friends to swim back to the shore. My brother returned but my two friends were still swimming. As the waves got bigger I lost sight of them. I waited for around three hours, but they didn’t return.”

Twenty-four-year-old Muhammad Haroon said he had come to celebrate Eid with his cousins, but refused to swim with them because he did not want to ruin his new clothes. “I was walking along the shore waiting for them to return. We are still clueless about them.”

Shoaib Siddiqui said a search operation had been launched with the help of Navy divers and a helicopter as well as civil authorities.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2014