Sindh death toll reaches 81 after heavy rains

At least 59 people died and hundreds of thousands were left stranded in the southern province of Sindh after heavy rains flooded an entire district over the weekend, bringing the total number of rain-related deaths to 81 in a week, and forcing the provincial government to declare an emergency, officials said on Monday. "It is a calamity. A very large chunk of land has been devastated, crops have been destroyed, and people are suffering," Salahuddin, the information adviser to the Sindh government, told IRIN from the southern port city of Karachi. He said Sindh’s chief minister had declared an emergency, and the provincial governor had set up a relief cell to coordinate humanitarian efforts battling the pounding rains. Army and navy personnel had been called in to assist local administrations, he said. But hopes that the abnormally high rainfall might abate, thereby assisting struggling relief workers to help the marooned populace of Badin, a district about 300 km northeast of Karachi, were dashed by fresh weather forecasts warning of more rains over the next two days. "A squall which is building up over the Rajasthan desert in India at the moment is likely to hit Sindh within the next 24 to 48 hours," Hasrat Mir, an official at the Sindh meteorological office in Karachi, told IRIN. He said the 240-mm rainfall recorded in Karachi during July alone was much higher than the 85-mm average usually received. "The next two days are critical, because there will be much more rain," he added. The Sindh authorities were preparing for a worst-case scenario and intended to evacuate locals should the impending storm worsen matters, Salahuddin said. An official working for the Edhi Trust, a relief agency in Badin town, told IRIN by telephone that most of the stranded population had been moved to safer areas, but the rain was still pouring down. "We are providing them with food and medical care," he said, adding that his organisation had decided to scour the rural areas around the town to assess how many more people had been affected. Salahuddin said Badin had been flooded because of a breach in a canal. "You can imagine just how bad the situation must be over there, because in Karachi alone, the local administration has had to put up 19 camps to help affected people," he said. In Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, Mohammed Syed, a local meteorological, told IRIN that the city had also received above average rainfall in July. "It is almost 100 mm above the average," he said. Those living in slum areas tend to be the most badly affected as the unusual monsoon rains flood their mud houses, leaving havoc in their wake. "We were fast asleep when our house’s wall collapsed last night because of the rain," Kishwar, a young housewife in an Islamabad slum, told IRIN as she cradled her infant child close to her chest while she looked at the shambles. "Luckily, it didn't rain that much last night otherwise the whole house might have collapsed," she added.