According to a disquieting news report, Doda district of occupied Jammu and Kashmir, after the collapse of one of its tunnels on Thursday morning, and low-lying areas in Sialkot, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Hafizabad, Sargodha, Jhang, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Rahimyar Khan, Sukkur and lower Sindh districts, are threatened by inundation, during the next eight days, from the release of 564,000 cusecs of water by India from the Baglihar Dam.
A message reportedly received by the Flood Forecasting Division of Meteorological Department, Lahore, on Thursday, said that, according to telephonic information from the Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Waters, river Chenab at Akhnoor, in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, had crossed the danger limit, as a sequel to flash floods, and consequently the Chenab at Marala could rise to the high flood level, threatening sudden increase in water level in the next 12 hours.
Subsequently, the Director General of Meteorological Department, Dr Qamaruzzaman, told a hurriedly-called news conference that 187,700 cusecs of water had already reached Marala Head-works near Sialkot and that the peak of 564,000 cusecs was expected to pass through Marala and Khanki Head-works shortly.
However, Chief Relief Commissioner of Pakistan, Engineer A.B. Sheikh claimed that all arrangements had been made to meet the situation. Pointing out that people living in low-lying and Bela areas had been warned to shift to safer places, for which troops had been alerted to remain ready to mount relief and rescue operations in the threatened areas.
More to this, the Meteorological Department chief forecast average rains during the current monsoon season. He also said that India had not given advance warning before releasing the water, as it was normally supposed to do. However, the alarming situation from heavy downpour in certain parts of the country, should serve as enough warning of likely devastation from rains and floods.
It was only the other day that two breaches were caused in the Dadu Canal from cloudburst, with water gushing through them reported to have submerged paddy fields and vegetable farms over 100 acres.
The villagers were reported to have blamed the irrigation department officials of apathy towards the need of speedy action following the breach. Earlier, reports also had it that about 120 villages in Sukkur and Ghotki, between Guddu and Sukkur Barrages, were inundated, last Monday, due to increase in the flow of water in the Indus.
It was also pointed out that since there had been no flood in the Indus for nine years, many villages had sprung up near the river banks. The dangerous situation, developing at the heels of severe flooding in the NWFP, caused by cloudbursts and melting snow, should serve as a warning of worse likely to follow in other vulnerable areas of the country.
It will be recalled that talking to the press, the other day, following dispatch of trucks with relief goods to the affected areas in NWFP, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had also revealed that the provincial governments had been cautioned to prepare both medium and long-term strategies for timely and effective control of damage feared from floods.
This is, certainly, indicative of the government's awareness of and concern for concrete contingency plans to cope with floods, as also with other natural calamities. The need of constant vigilance by the provincial and federal governments, is all the more desirable for understandable reasons.
While Sindh is evidently threatened by devastating rains and floods, the NWFP already had a foretaste of the rains havoc, as the rivers there continue to be in very high flood at various vulnerable places. It will also be noted that, in Punjab, people inhabiting the Indus-bed areas in Dera Ghazi Khan have also been forewarned of high flood, despite the assurance of the Punjab Flood Relief Committee that the flood situation in the province remained under control.
The fact that natural calamities may often catch people unawares, there remains the need of constantly improving upon the best of plans to meet such eventualities.
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