NINETEEN graves, in a row, lined the edge of a metalled road which connects Nazar Mohammad Mughairi village with Khairpur Nathan Shah. A pall of gloom hung over a village in K.N. Shah a few days after tragedy befell a flood-hit family returning from Karachi to a town where floodwaters still submerge many areas even after two months.

An eerie silence prevailed in the autaq of Qurban Mughairi, who was bringing his family back to K.N. Shah, a town in Dadu district around 240kms from Hyderabad, in a coach. The ill-fated bus he had hired to return to his ancestral home caught fire.

His family had decided to return home after learning that water had receded from their village.

Read: Lives of older people at risk in flood-hit areas, survey says

Qurban never knew his children won’t be able to see their ancestral abode again. They had to leave their home all of a sudden after floodwaters started entering K. N. Shah in August.

“Children were pressing me to return to K. N. Shah as they didn’t like the food there [Karachi],” said Qurban in a choked voice as relatives sat in his autaq, which overlooks the farms around the village. The farmland now looks like a lake.

“Hussain [his youngest son] clung desperately to his sister. She didn’t let go of him too till both were burnt [alive],” recalled Qurban, overwhelmed with emotion as he described how the remains of Hussain and his sister were found together inside the bus.

His family had left for Karachi’s Manghopir in August, leaving behind everything in the village. “Around 12 feet of water had accumulated around our village. Adults like me can wade through chest-high water, but no child can do so,” he said. “Can there be a bigger loss than these 19 deaths?”

Inhabitants of Khairpur Nathan Shah have braved the worst of times again after the 2010 super floods, which drowned the town then too. For them nothing has changed since 2010.

“In 2010 we at least had heard sirens, requiring evacuation. This time it was only chaos. People ran for their lives almost in the middle of the night soon after an announcement that K. N. Shah will drown any time,” said Dr Arbab Ali Shah, an elderly general physician. People in their thousands abandoned the town.

Since water started receding from the municipal limits a couple of weeks ago, people started returning in droves, resuming their business in the main bazaar.

Khairpur Nathan Shah wears the look of an abandoned settlement these days. Its misery echoed in room No 1 of the Sindh High Court’s Hyderabad bench on Wednesday when a young lawyer from the area, Altaf Awan, said during a hearing that “a young man drowned behind Government Degree College today. It shows how much water is still there in some pockets”.

Misery rules

Parts of the taluka were still submerged and residents were staying on the edge of N-55 Indus Highway in tents with their herds of cattle. The road connecting Sehwan and K. N. Shah has been restored through the Indus Highway.

There is, however, no end to the predicament of the populace, yet. The stench emanating from garbage was enough to put this writer off during a recent visit.

The carcass of a donkey lay unattended. Insanitary conditions, heaps of garbage and dust mark the landscape. Administrative machinery seems to have disappeared. “Please note the location of Yaqeen Shah Mohallah which is still under water. Mosquitoes have turned life into a hell. Who should we turn to,” a forlorn Liaquat Zangejo cried out.

Another resident, Mohammad Ibrahim, asked this writer to visit New Abad colony, saying “water is still there in New Abad. But nobody bothers”.

Boat operation from Mir Hassan Chowk ended last week. Residents were using boats to reach the place from downtown as the road between the two ends was under water. Now overloaded tractor trolleys have replaced the boats.

Dr Arbab recounted what people had to go through. “There are cases in which people died of starvation,” he said. Although Dr Arbab himself had left K. N. Shah with his family, he decided to come back after a fortnight when he saw a video. “A man was carrying his ailing brother on a donkey cart. This video shook me. Since then I am here.”

He believes Khairpur Nathan Shah was drowned deliberately. “How four defence lines failed to protect the town is mind-boggling.”

“Floodwaters entered from the west, north and south as defence lines gave in to gushing waters,” Altaf Awan, the lawyer, said.

According to him, many deaths have gone unreported. “The body of Dholan Chandio, 40, got decomposed and only then people learnt about it. Perhaps he died of starvation in Shahbaz Colony, which was under four feet of water at that time.”

Thieves made hay while the town was fighting for survival. “Scrap dealers minted money. Their shops were the only ones which did business even then.”

Only one or two persons had stayed back in every house to guard properties.

“They used to fire shots in the air at midnight to keep scoundrels at bay. The streets of the main bazaar were so deserted that our voices would resound though the stillness of the night,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2022