HYDERABAD, Dec 11: Several thousand villagers including women and children were left high and dry following a breach in the water storage lagoon of Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) in Karan Khan Shoro village Qasimabad in the wee hours of Wednesday.

Rangers had to be called in to plug the breach which was swiftly done. The law-enforcers evacuated people from around one dozen villages submerged under six to seven feet of water. Affected villagers are living in miserable conditions on the embankments of Indus amidst their complaints that they have not been taken care of by authorities concerned.

The breach is believed to have inundated around 100 acres of agricultural land besides one dozen villages which included Sajjan Detho, Wahid Palari, Misri Shah, Jadal Shah, Khan Mahar, Kohli and Qazi Nazar Mahar. The villagers were taken aback in the middle of the night when they found water in their homes and village keeping in view the fact that there were no rain and the river Indus doesn’t have sufficient inflows of water.

Soon they realised that a breach had developed in one of the three water lagoons of WASA. Since all the three lagoons are inter-connected, the WASA employees closed the supply for third lagoon which was being filled ahead of 10-day closure of river Indus in third week of December.

The villagers started shifting to nearby protective embankment of Indus with their livestock and whatever belongings they had. Local PPP leaders including MNA Ameer Ali Shah Jamote were informed by party activists, Naeem Jarwar, who rushed to the spot soon after the breach. The MNA gave Rs50,000 for arranging fodder of livestock and other goods immediately. Power supply to the area got disconnected to avoid electrocution in village.

Until Wednesday night sufficient numbers of tents were not provided to the breach-affected villagers, who raised hue and cry. They also blocked a section of Jamshoro-Hyderabad road to press authorities for expediting relief and rescue work.

Sindh Minister Zahid Bhurgari, who was elected from the same area, arrived in the area on Wednesday evening while district nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil also visited site of breach and villages in the morning and coordinated with DCO and the director-general of the Hyderabad Development Authority, Javed Iqbal Junejo, for relief operation.

District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil has formed a committee headed by DCO Hyderabad with DG HDA and MD WASA to probe into the causes leading to the breach in the lagoon.

“I hope water would be drained out from houses by Friday as these machines drain out 10,000 gallons of water per minute”, the nazim said.

When contacted, DCO confirmed that so far no action had been taken but suspension of MD WASA had been recommended by Sindh fisheries minister.

The de-silting of two lagoons was done at a cost of Rs38.880 million in year 2004. It has a capacity of 100 million galloons per day while old lagoons have 200 MGDs capacity each.