KARACHI, Aug 22: Karachi has received 271mm of rain in August and many localities of the city are therefore badly flooded. Some of them had never experienced such a watery nightmare ever before. The city fathers blame Nature and the poor for this disaster. One MQM MNA even had the gall to say that Karachi is sinking because of unauthorised katchi abadis.But is that really so? Even if the administration were to bulldoze all the encroachments and dump their inmates into remote regions outside the city, Karachi will continue to suffer similar ravages if the root cause of the problem is not addressed.

The fundamental reason why such vast tracts of land were flooded is the blocking of the main outfalls that carry water from Karachi’s storm water drains and nullahs into the sea. For this, responsibility rests squarely on the rich and the powerful. They have the clout to reclaim huge areas from the sea — quite often illegally — to satisfy their land hunger. In the process they are changing the ecology of the sea coast and digging their own graves, observes Parveen Rahman, the director of Opp-RTI.

Karachi has three main drainage outfalls that carry the city’s sewerage and rain water into the sea. They serve 14 towns and all of them have been choked or narrowed over the years either to make room for ill-conceived projects such as the Lyari Expressway or to reclaim land. This year the little bit of extra rain therefore played havoc with the city.

The three drainage outfalls are the Kolachi Bypass, the Lyari river and the Malir river. The Kolachi Bypass, which receives the Soldier Bazar and the City Railway drains, has been reduced from the 300 feet that it originally was to 30 feet. This has enabled the KPT to reclaim considerable land for commercial purposes while destroying the mangroves and choking off the outfall. As a result the rain water, mixed with sewage, backed up to flood Saddar and the business centre on I.I. Chundrigar Road.

The Lyari river has been affected by the construction of the Lyari Expressway that has reduced the river to one third its width. This links up with the Gujjar Nullah and the Orangi Nullah and flooding in these outlets affected the western part of the city such as Agra Taj Colony, localities around the Lyari General Hospital and others.

The Malir river serves the Malir, Korangi, Landhi and Gulshan areas and empties into the Arabian Sea via the Gizri Creek. This has been affected by the encroachment by the DHA at Qayyumabad that has halved the width of the Malir river. Here land reclamation has also narrowed the outlet to the sea.

It is strange that the administration understands the implications of mindless land reclamation but is not bothered by it. In a meeting at the Governor’s House in September 2006, this issue was brought up and the Governor directed the minister of environment to survey the reclamation of land specially in Mai Kolachi and other areas having an impact on the coastal areas. He called for an environment impact assessment report. As is the wont, nothing has been done.

While this blocking of the drainage outfalls has prevented a free flow of the rain water, other encroachments have also proved to be contributory factors. Many commercial enterprises and the corporate sector have encroached on city drains that have not been cleaned and dredged. At the junctions of roads and nullahs piped culverts create bottlenecks. Road construction that is taken in hand thoughtlessly serves as a barrier when the roads are elevated and no provision is made for the drainage of water. These roads have trapped the water in the open spaces adjacent to them. In the absence of coordination between the various agencies that are busy digging up Karachi so furiously, the underground structures, pipes and outlets have been destroyed quite mindlessly.

The solutions Parveen Rahman suggests are economically and technologically feasible and could save Karachi from such disasters in the coming years. One is the need to convert the Mai Kolachi Bypass into a low bridge that would not cost more than Rs120 million, she estimates. But the snag is that the land carved out by the KPT adjacent to the bypass will have to be surrendered to the sea. This will break the hearts of those who are dreaming of making millions out of this venture. But the bridge offers multiple advantages. It will save the mangroves. It will allow a free flow of storm water from the Saddar and Chundrigar areas (that include the plots marked out for the American Consulate that can otherwise come under threat in coming years). It will not disrupt the road artery between Boat Basin and Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan Road.

The encroachment on Malir river will have to be stopped. Similarly the reclamation of land in the Gizri Creek will have to be halted. No one lays claim to it but it has been going on surreptitiously for some time. It needs to be ascertained whether this is in any way related to the construction being planned at the Bundal and Buddo islands that will be connected with the mainland by a bridge in this area. The design of the Lyari Expressway will have to be reassessed and some solution found to the problem created by it. Dredging the Lyari river to compensate for the loss of width by giving it greater depth may not help if the sea level is higher. The water will inevitably flow back into the drain.

The solution to the other problems caused by the failure of cleaning the storm water drains and disrupting the underground and above the ground network is too obvious to be recounted here. Before the city government begins a drive to remove encroachments by the poor in the drains, it should start by addressing the drainage outfalls where the rich are seeking to mint money by encroaching on Nature’s preserve.