Uphill battle to save Usta Mohammad
QUETTA: Ferocious floods have inundated the outskirts of Usta Mohammad after breaching embankments on the Khirthar and Saifullah Magsi canals.
Irrigation workers have been making hectic efforts to erect a dyke with the help of local people to save the town.
“A 200-feet breach developed on the right bank of Khirthar canal early on Tuesday morning and surging waters played havoc in the area,” an official told Dawn, adding that another large breach had occurred in the Saifullah canal, triggering a massive flow towards Usta Mohammad.
Local people agreed to divert the floods towards fields to save populated areas.
Water from the Khirthar canal is flowing towards the ‘green belt’, ravaging standing rice crops over thousands of acres.
Floodwaters have reached Gharibabad, on the outskirts of Usta Mohammad, but have reportedly changed direction and are now moving towards Qubo Saeed Khan town, on the Sindh-Balochistan border.
“We hope Usta Mohammad will remain safe because the water has changed direction,” Dr Ghulam Hussain of Usta Mohammad told Dawn.
He said the town and adjoining areas had been without electricity for the past 24 hours and criminals had started looting shops and houses abandoned by fleeing people.
Official sources said that despite orders by the administration to evacuate the town, about 30 per cent of inhabitants had been forced to stay back because of transport problems.
They said hundreds of people who had left Usta Mohammad and Rojhan Jamali were stranded on roads which were inundated and breached at several places.
More helicopters were needed to rescue people marooned in Dera Allahyar, Rojhan Jamali and other areas, they said.
Only one helicopter was seen operating in the area on Tuesday. The situation has not changed in the worst-affected area of Dera Allahyar.
“The area is under five- to eight-feet deep water which has spared nothing in the town,” a resident, Ali Shah, said.
People displaced from the flood-affected areas of Sindh and Jaffarabad district are moving to Dera Murad Jamali, Sibi and Quetta where relief camps are facing a shortage of tents, food and drinking water.
Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited the affected areas of Jaffarabad along with the Commander Southern Command, Lt-Gen Javed Zia.
He was briefed about the flood situation and relief work being carried out by army personnel. The army chief said all possible help would be provided to the affected people.
Gastroenteritis has broken out among flood survivors in Balochistan on a large scale and hundreds of people are reported to be suffering from the disease.
Sibi Health EDO Dr Abdul Jabbar Achakzai said dozens of patients, most of them children, were being brought to the city daily.
He said the Sibi hospital was facing a shortage of medicines. Official sources said that over 200,000 carcasses of cattle were floating on floodwaters.
Hundreds of thousands of people have no choice but to drink contaminated water because supplies have been devastated.
With temperatures soaring to almost 50degrees Celsius, a large number of displaced people living in the open suffered from sunstroke.
Sources in the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said tens of thousands of people were marooned between Qaidi Shakh and Rojhan Jamali and on the only available route out of Usta Mohammad.
Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) officials said about 500 cases of water-borne diseases were being examined daily at an army medical camp in Dera Murad Jamali. They said army mobile teams visiting Jaffarabad’s affected areas were examining over 250 patients daily.
Affected people complained that the pace of relief work was very slow.
Lt-Gen Zia told reporters that thousands of houses from Dera Allahyar to Rojhan Jamali had been washed away.
