KARACHI: With the first heaviest spell of the current monsoon rains so far, Thursday’s moderate to heavy showers played havoc with the dilapidated civic infrastructure and precarious power distribution system leaving one man electrocuted, flooding in low-lying areas and hours-long traffic jams on main arteries of the city.

The Met office observatories recorded 65mm of rain in Surjani Town by 8pm; North Karachi 49.8mm, Quaidabad 47mm, PAF Base Faisal 37mm, Gulshan-i-Hadeed 25mm while the rain count in other areas remained below 20mm.

Although the power supply system performed relatively better than past rains, many areas suffered hours-long outages due to what was described as ‘local faults’.

The power supply outages continued to haunt Karachiites.

District Central inundated with water

Youth electrocution

A teenager was electrocuted in rainwater accumulated in Shabbirabad near Mohammed Ali Society. The video of the victim went viral on social media as the people were seen reluctant to touch his body due to fears of electric shock.

In their strong reaction against K-Electric the area people were seen expressing anger against the power utility.

The K-Electric, however, in a statement regretting over the loss of life said that it was not its fault.

“The victim has been identified as 14-year-old Ishaq Jagirani,” Bahadurabad SHO Qurban Ali said.

“He was actually passing through the area on foot when he got an electric shock in rainwater accumulated near a petrol pump in Shabbirabad. He died on the spot. The body was taken to the JPMC and later to his residence in KDA Society. I have met the victim’s family and if they want to proceed legally, the police would definitely act upon it. The victim hailed from Larkana.”

Meanwhile, K-Electric spokesperson Imran Rana in a statement expressed regrets over the incident.

“We feel sorry over an incident in Dhoraji and expressed sympathy with the family.” No electric wire had fallen at the spot, nor was there any pole, he added.

During the initial probe, it transpired that streetlight pole had caused the electrocution.

“The KE was not responsible for installation, repair and care of the poles installed for streetlight,” said the spokesperson.

More rains to come

Earlier the rain began in most parts of Karachi in the second half of the day when the clouds after raining in outskirts of the metropolis — Gadap Town and Malir — caused heavy rains in the city centre which continued for almost two hours intermittently.

The Pakistan Metrological Department (PMD) in a fresh advisory heralded about the weakening of the current raining system just for a day and warning that it could strengthen again by the weekend.

“Monsoon currents are continuously penetrating in the country and likely to weaken during next 24 hrs and may strengthen in the country during the weekend [July 9 and 10],” it said.

Under the influence of this weather system, the PMD said, rain-wind and thundershowers with isolated heavy falls were expected in Karachi and other Sindh cities, including Mirpurkhas, Dadu, Hyderabad, Thatta and Badin.

District Central submerged

The Thursday’s rain as usual came as a test of patience for the people of Karachi and like past incidents all low-lying areas of the city were submerged by rainwater.

The Central district again emerged as worst hit locality where many key roads, including intersections of Shershah Suri Road, were inundated with water leading to hours-long traffic jams.

The newly constructed embankments at Gujjar Nala, on the other hand, collapsed in the rainfall leaving the neighbouring Kausar Niazi Colony inundated.

Murtaza sees ‘cloud burst’

The city administrator, barrister Murtaza Wahab called it a ‘cloudburst’, which created such a situation in the densely populated Central district.

“There was a major cloud burst in central district due to which KDA & Nagan Chowrangi have water. However, Naala & drainage line has responded well and water level is coming down. Machinery has been deployed. All underpasses are clear for traffic,” tweeted barrister Wahab.

Snarl-ups

The rain badly affected traffic in the city, where hours-long snarl-ups were witnessed on key roads.

The traffic movement started slowing down when the downpour turned stronger and took hours to normalise amid non-functioning of several traffic signals, absence of traffic police officials and blockade of some major roads due to accumulation of rainwater.

In district South, hundreds of vehicles became stuck in traffic mess on I.I. Chundrigar Road, M.R. Kayani Road, Sarwar Shaheed Road, Abdullah Haroon Road, Napier Road, Hasrat Mohani Road, Burnes Road, Shahrah-i-Liaquat, Saddar and Sharea Faisal.

The situation however normalised by the sunset after enhanced deployment of traffic police.

Officials said the rain badly affected two key links of East district — Korangi Causeway and Korangi Road — which link Korangi with the rest of the city, as people opted for alternative routes which further swelled the number of vehicles on available arteries.

The vehicular traffic in Liaquatabad, Nazimabad, different sectors in North Karachi and on Shahrah-i-Pakistan remained slow but kept moving after the alternative system to drain the rainwater was installed by authorities.

In East district, University Road was also hit by traffic jam where hundreds of vehicles were seen lined up due to accumulated rainwater.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2022