Rain-related death toll hits 621 in Sindh

More people displaced as another  cut made into Larkana-Sehwan Bund

Floods have caused great devastation in Sindh, as the death toll on Saturday reached 621, with 11,563 injured, while 16,18,602 homes damaged due to the calamity.

According to details of losses in Sindh, shared by officials of both the NDMA and PDMA amid unprecedented rainfall and floods in the province, at least 621 people have lost their lives to the calamity so far. A focal person of flood relief operations said that a total 49,564 cattle had been reported dead amid the floods, while over 1,618,602 homes were damaged. Crops on 45,82,044 acres of land had been destroyed due to the natural disaster, he added. He said that at least 57 bridges and 2,432km area of 521 roads had been damaged or demolished in the floods. “A total of 1,716 relief camps have been established in Sindh where 594,620 people are residing. Moreover, 296 camps have been established in Hyderabad division, 577 in Shaheed Benazirabad division, 52 in Mirpur Khas division, 269 in Sukkur, 481 in Larkana division and 41 in Karachi,” he added.

Meanwhile, the people living in Dadu, Jamshro and Badin districts continued to face hardships, especially in the form of displacement, as floodwater entered their areas.

According to reports, officials of the Irrigation Department made another cut into the Larkana-Sehwan (LS) Bund near Karampur area on Saturday in a bid to prevent floodwater from entering Dadu, Bhan Saeedabad and Sehwan Sharif towns from the breached points of Manchar Lake and the drain.

Vijay Kumar, assistant engineer at the Irrigation Department, told the media that a 200-foot-wide cut was made at RD-98 in the Sehwan’s Karampur town to divert the water into Indus River. On Friday, two cuts were made in the LS Bund at RD-99 and RD-100 after breaches in Manchar Lake’s protective dyke threatened to enter towns. Kumar said that authorities were planning on making more cuts into the bund as it was the only option available to accelerate the release of water into Indus River.

Residents said that floodwaters, after inundating nine union councils of the district, entered Pir Shahnawaz, adding that several residents were vacating the area to move to safer places. Reports from Dadu town said that following the rise in floodwaters, the irrigation officials, police force as well as residents of the area began erecting a ring bund to protect it from gushing waters.

Hanif Samoon is a senior journalist based at Thar/Badin and contributes reports from different districts of Sindh to Minute Mirror. He has won a number of awards, including the Agahi Award twice for his stories on health and child rights. He tweets @HanifSamoon1 and can be reached through email at [email protected]