LAHORE, Sept 4: With the arrival of September, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) and Wapda have made a new arrangement to cope with floods and for the safety of the Mangla Dam.

The arrangement is based on the PMD’s assurance to Wapda that a credible system is in place to track down any rain-producing depression once it starts building from the Bay of Bengal —- the only source of such a weather change.

Starting from the Bay of Bengal, a depression takes five-to-eight days before arriving the Rajasthan area in India from where it re-curves to hit the catchment area of the Mangla Dam.

Real flood risk develops when any depression reroutes itself from the Rajhastan area to north or north east Pakistan. This takes one full day, giving Wapda, if properly coordinates with the PMD, ample time to lower the dam level and accommodate any amount of subsequent floods.

According to the new arrangement, the Wapda authorities, once informed, will bring down the dam level from its present 1205.65 to 1199 feet. It will give them a six-foot margin of manoeuvring —- almost 350,000 acre feet of water. The present weather condition —- categorized as Category I —- can produce a maximum peak of 500,000 cusecs of water for a very short period of time. It will raise the dam level by only 0.3 feet.

In fact, it produced one or two minor peaks during the last few days but they were managed.

The other categories —- II and III —- can generate 700,000 cusecs and above and up to 1700,000 cusecs, respectively. But the present weather condition will not produce them.

About the possibility of high floods of category II and III, PMD adviser Abdul Majid said that the possibility of floods was certainly there. But that would only be possible if the present weather conditions changed and they went unnoticed by the Met Office.

He also defended the role of the PMD in the 1992 floods when it had allegedly failed to deliver a timely warning. It was wrong to put all blame on the PMD, he said. The PMD had kept informed the Wapda authorities about the developments during this period. Unfortunately, Wapda’s telemetry system had developed a fault and it had failed to record the actual rain and discharge data from the catchment area. But the PMD did issue a “special precautionary warning” and had intimated it that the situation could become critical —- the most alarming word in weather forecasting diction —- during the next 36 hours. This had been issued at 1000 hrs on Sept 9, 1992, while the flood peak hit the Mangla Dam in the morning of 10th, he said.

It was obvious that the Mangla Dam operator had enough time to drain water, but he could not do so. In fact a high-level committee, headed by then water and power minister Jam Yousuf Ali, had conducted an inquiry and exonerated the PMD of any blame. It’s report was part of an official record that could be checked by anyone, he maintained.

Since then, he said the PMD had improved its monitoring system and coordination with Wapda. More water, he said, was required by the country and Wapda must be appreciated for storing it. Those feeling apprehensive about flashfloods must realize that they do not occur out of blue but develop within the system, he said, adding that could be tracked down now right from the beginning to the end.