AFTER devastating upper Sindh, the floodwaters have now entered lower Sindh. The Thatta-Sujawal road has been inundated and … there is little hope of saving [Sujawal]. …[M]any people left the town while a good many are stranded there. Will their lives be saved? God knows better. There are reports that wherever the flood has caused devastation, the people responsible for shifting the victims to safer places are disappearing from the scene.

The kind of flood havoc and displacement being witnessed by the people of Sindh is being termed as the worst in recent history, but [politicians], whether they belong to the ruling party or the opposition, are missing from the scene. It seems that the irrigation officials and the administration are on long leave. Sindh has no one to look after it and the people have to do it on their own. Breaches in Thatta district made it clear that the havoc was not natural. The barrages withstood the pressure of the … floodwaters. Hence the devastation was due to deep-rooted negligence, corruption and inefficiency of the irrigation officials.

…The media has been raising the question of holding these officials responsible but now the people are calling media offices and asking why no official is booked for the death of a number of people…. If an under-trial prisoner escapes from the lockup, the police staff is suspended. …Here the officers committed the crime of causing scores to be drowned and of displacing hundreds of thousands. Still the high-ups are backing the irrigation officers. …It was the responsibility of every legislator to see whether any embankment in his constituency was weak…. Had they been aware of their responsibilities, this situation would not have occurred. Some other dykes were also vulnerable; there were possibilities of breaches, but certain government officials and legislators realised their responsibility and looked after the embankments. And there was no breach. …In the case of Thatta, the legislators, the administration and the irrigation department remained asleep. The legislators played the politics of flood and were engaged in a war of words against each other. No one spent his energies in looking after the embankments. …Now Dadu is facing the floods. …There is time to be alert and act responsibly. … — (Aug 29)

Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi