Rain havoc in Karachi

The death toll from the "pre-monsoon" rains accompanied by strong winds, rising to over 200 in two days was cataclysmic in its own way. Another grim dimension to the tragedy was added by the sweltering heat of several weeks and the utter failure of the new management of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation to provide any worthwhile relief to its customers from tortuous load-shedding and supply breakdowns.
Worse, suddenly caught helpless on streets and inside myriad homes in an evil foreboding situation, nobody seemed to know for sure as how best to face a situation which was full of confusion and destruction. It was not only the directly-hitting rains and fury of the gale-force winds that spelled disaster.
A great deal was added to the unforeseen suffering of the variously entrapped people by the uprooting of trees, flying rooftops and caving-in of modestly built-up contrivances as living places. Equally disastrous was collapse of huge power-operated billboards, and snapping of electric wires, and one not even indirectly affected by such a horrible combination of adversity, will shudder to think of what befell Karachi. Little to wonder, quite a large number of the dead and injured will appear to have been the victims of electrocution too.
The metropolis boasts the largest number of billboards for publicity purposes, to the increasing benefit of private and public sector entities. At the same time, they constitute no insignificant source of income for the City Government, Cantonment Boards, Railways, Civil Aviation Authority, in their respective domains.
But the way they are put up looks like a jungle spread all over with seemingly, little thought going into ensuring public safety in the event of vagaries of weather or other accidents dismantling them into pieces as happened last Saturday. Many of the huge structures among them falling apart added to the chain of widespread destruction. Strong winds had dismantled billboards outside buildings or at the side of roads.
Of course, the whole city suffered from the torrential rainfall, but the areas inhabited by the low-income people were the most threatened areas, and suffered the most. This refers equally to the direct sufferings as well as to the relief operations belatedly started in more or less an unplanned manner.
Which, to say the least, unfortunately, will point to the sordid fact that neither the civic agencies, nor the KESC, paid any heed to the weather prophets' warnings spread over several days together. It is, however, another matter that both of them tried in their own ways, to make the people believe to the contrary. It will also be noted that the catastrophic storm that hit the metropolis also exposed the vulnerability of its overall infrastructure, leaving a great deal to be desired, enthusiastic and motivated efforts of CDGK, notwithstanding.
The understandable panicky behaviour of the motorists as it jammed street crossings was one instance of this. It owed a great more to hazardous digging of roads almost across the city, though for accelerated development. But, then it could have been managed by the police or public volunteers to ensure against the havoc experienced by the harried citizens. Again, in so far as relief operations are concerned, according to one report, the Edhi Foundation, which provided more relief to the rain victims than the local administration, also said that more than 200 people succumbed to rain-related accidents in two days while official figures were found rather inconsistent.
All in all, the rain havoc has brought to the fore sheer lack of disaster management to handle any emergency situation, including the one bedevilling Karachi now. Perhaps, the only saving grace was the rapid draining of rainwater flooding in various areas, failing which a great deal more would have been added to the plight of Karachiites. Now that the weather prophets have forecast more rains in coming days, one hopes that, learning the right lessons from the consequences of paucity of disaster management the authorities would lose no time in putting the missing links together to meet similar eventualities now or, God forbid, in the near future.