The Federal Flood Commission (FFC) said on Wednesday that the low-lying areas of Ghotki, Sukkur, Larkana, Nawabshah, Hyderabad, Naushero Feroze and Dadu would be swamped by flooding.
“Analysis of current hydrological data suggests that Sindh, especially the areas along the Indus, will be badly affected due to exceptionally high flood conditions,” the FFC said in its advisory.
“Inundation and riverine flooding in all low-lying areas of Ghotki and Sukkur is imminent,” it added.
Some officials in the ministry of water and power criticised the FFC for issuing its advisory on the basis of early morning water flows instead of updating data regularly.
An official said the ministry would like the FFC to issue its reports twice a day to help rescue authorities take more precise decisions.
The officials said engineers of the army, Wapda and the provincial irrigation department had been put on alert to breach embankments in case of a threat to the barrage structures.
They said people had been evacuated from the threatened areas to avoid casualties.
The flood warning agency said the Indus at Guddu was likely to attain exceptionally high flood levels of 850,000 to 950,000 cusecs on Friday and result in inundation and riverine flooding in low-lying areas of Ghotki and Sukkur.
At Sukkur, the river is likely to touch an exceptionally high flood level (800,000 to 900,000 cusecs) on Aug 7 and inundate low-lying areas of Sukkur, Larkana, Nawabshah, Hyderabad and Naushero Feroze.
The flood peak of 550,000 to 700,000 cusecs will pass Kotri on Aug 10-11.
Five districts in Punjab, especially areas along the Indus, have been badly affected.After a breach of the Left Marginal Bund (LMB) of Taunsa barrage early this week, low-lying areas of Bhakkar, Layyah, Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur districts have been inundated.
A flood peak of 960,000 cusecs has passed Taunsa and is heading towards Kot Mithan.
The situation along the river has aggravated and the Fakhar embankment on its right side, near Kot Mithan town, has been overtopped. The situation along the Rojhan Flood Bund is also grim and has exposed the hydraulic grade line.
Official data suggests that 1,369 villages in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Balochistan have been affected by the floods, displacing 1.11 million people and damaging 1.1 million acres of cropped area.
In Punjab, 1,003 villages, 520,667 people and 1.086 million acres of cropped areas have been affected.
A total of 23,500 houses have been destroyed and 27,256 damaged.
At least 946 people have been killed across the country, the data shows.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 15,576 houses have been destroyed.
In Balochistan, 15,197 houses have been damaged.
In Punjab, 10,232 houses have been damaged and 4,555 destroyed.
River flows at Kalabagh, Chashma and Taunsa on the Indus are declining, while flows at Rasul in Jhelum and Trimmu in Chenab are in low-to-medium floods or in steady condition.
Tarbela and Mangla dams have water levels of 1528.42 feet and 1206 feet --21.58 feet and four feet below their maximum levels.
The combined live storage position of Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma is 10.389 million acre-feet against last year's 10.058MAF.
The FFD said fairly widespread thunderstorm and rain, with moderate-to-heavy showers at isolated places, were expected in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, upper Sindh and Kashmir, besides upper catchments of Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers.
Scattered thunderstorm and rain are also expected in upper catchment of the Indus, besides northeastern Balochistan, lower Sindh and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The meteorological department said widespread rains, at times heavy, might generate more flash floods in rivers and nullahs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The flood situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab might be aggravated by current monsoon rains, it warned.
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