Four months on, many villages of Johi still submerged in floodwater

KARAHI: Over four months have passed, but the already vulnerable dwellers of Sindh’s Dadu district are still bearing the brunt of the recent devastating floods, amid harsh winter.

Villages located on the left side of ‘Main Nara Valley’ (MNV) drain in Johi Tehsil are still submerged with floodwater. The poor residents are forced to live in dilapidated mud houses, with no drinking water, no gas and electricity available to them.

Absence of a proper healthcare, and medical system resulted into outbreak of waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, skin diseases, dengue, eye infections, etc., among the villagers who have already lost their loved ones, standing crops, agriculture land, and lifelong earnings in the devastating floods.

Residents complained that scarcity of water, unavailability of electricity and gas and shortage of other amenities on which women are highly dependent to run a household leaves them stranded miserably with no availability of resources to feed themselves in villages like Pir Mashaikh, Chandan Mori, Pir Shahmir Lund and Jorio Lund in Johi Tehsil.

Floodwater has damaged the only government primary school in Pir Mashaikh village.

During a visit to some villages in Johi last week, this scribe noticed some barefooted kids playing with mud on bank of MNV drain, about 8-km off the Dadu district headquarter. “Since the last floods out school has turned into ruins,” responded the kids, when asked why don’t you go schools? They spend most of their daytime fetching drinking water to their village.

They said an NGO had established a water tank for the people sheltered in makeshift tents on the MNV drain bank four months back; however, they wrapped up the facility three months ago. Now drinking water is one of the main issues.

“Due to the recent heavy rain and floods, NMV drain overflowed and water gushed into our villages and swept away everything. Residents of areas at risk were given shelter on the bank of the drain for some time,” said Abdul Majeed, a resident of Pir Mashaikh village. He was of the view that the scale of flood devastation could not have been so huge, had the authorities left the gates of Manchar Lake opened during the floods.

Meanwhile, on request of the Inspector General (IG) Sindh Ghulam Nabi Memon, the New York Police Department’s (NYPD’s) Muslim Officers’ Society (MOS) has pledged to reconstruct and repair some damaged houses of the policemen in Sindh province.

In his recent visit to Pakistan, the MOS president, Adeel Rana, convened a meeting with IG Sindh in Karachi, wherein the provincial police chief apprised him about the post-flood grim situation.

IG Sindh had expressed his desire that if MOS can help reconstruct the damaged homes of some police personnel in the province.

According to MOS volunteer, a survey of the damaged homes has been conducted in Dadu district along with the local police; contracts are being awarded for the construction/ repair of police homes.

Senior Superintended of Police (SSP) Dadu Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada hailed MOS for the humanitarian initiative in these testing times, and vowed to extend his all-out cooperation.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022