Cotton belt starting from Khairpur Nathan Shah to Sehwan taluka was badly affected said District president of Sindh Abadgar Board Dadu. - File photo

THE recent devastating rains in Sindh have so far inundated about four million acres damaging standing Kharif crops worth Rs256 billion.

The rains that started pouring by mid August played havoc in the province and were continuing till the first week of September.

Almost 0.9 million houses have been damaged rendering the people homeless.

The torrential rains have inundated the upper and lower regions of Sindh. People in 19 districts of the province have been badly affected who are facing shortage of food, clean water, shelter and medicine.

Taluka Johi in Dadu district was also badly hit by torrential rains compelling people to take shelter in government buildings when their Kutcha houses collapsed. The situation worsened after the underground drainage system failed, said Pir Bux Babar.

Chairman National Disaster Management Authority Dr Zafar Qadir said that due to continuous rains in Sindh for the last three weeks, the situation had worsened. “The rains have ruined crops over four million acres and more than 0.1 million cattle heads have perished.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah visited the relief camps in rain-hit districts of Tando Allahyar in lower Sindh. Talking to newsmen, he said people in the rain-affected areas would be exempted from revenue and agriculture taxes.

A rain-affected person Anwar Azad Kandhro in Dadu district said: “Due to heavy rains breaches have occurred in drains in Badin, Mirpurkhas, Thatta, Nawabshah and Dadu districts, which have inundated millions of acres with Kharif crops. The breaches were not yet plugged and the gushing water was inundating more areas,” he said.

A resident of Tando Bahago area of Badin district, Ahmed Lohar, said: “Owing to breaches in the LBOD, around 50 villages have been inundated and until the breaches were plugged the drain will keep overflowing adding to the miseries of the people.”

Provincial Agriculture Secretary Agha Jan Akhtar said that agriculture department had directed the district officials to assess the extent of damage to crops. He said that after reports from districts officials, the affected areas would be rehabilitated. The agriculture department was planning to cultivate sunflower directly in the rain-hit districts on the directive of the Sindh government to provide relief to growers.

Khamiso Khan, a grower from union council Moundar, taluka Dadu, said that his 12 acres with chilly crops out of 15 acres, 14 acres of paddy out of 20 acres and one acre of tomato crop were badly damaged in the rains. A cotton grower of union council Pipri, Haji Ghulam complained that his 60 acres of cotton out of 65 acres were damaged in recent rains. He said he was trying to drain out water from his cotton fields and hoped to complete the task by flushing out accumulated water with the help of water pumps.

District president of Sindh Abadgar Board Dadu, Dharm Das said that according to initial estimates Kharif crops including paddy, cotton and vegetables were affected to the extent of 30 per cent in Radhan area, 60 per cent in Khairpur taluka, and 70 per cent in Dadu and Johi talukas due to ongoing heavy downpour. He said the recent rains were more desastrous than the super floods of last year.

Cotton belt starting from Khairpur Nathan Shah to Sehwan taluka was badly affected, he said. Mehar and Khairpur Nathan Shah were in the rice belt which was inundated by rains and water was standing in the fields damaging the crop, he added.  The president of Rice Mills Association, Sindh-Balochistan, Arif Mahisar said that paddy, sugarcane, cotton, onion, tomato and chilly crops including fodder were badly damaged in the ongoing rains in Dadu and Jamshoro districts. He demanded compensation for the agrieved growers.