Pakistan Water Gateway

Recent floods and rain in district Badin of Sindh has resulted in the scarcity of safe drinking water and food while food items are being sold at high prices, a private TV channel reported on Tuesday.

Badin is one of the calamity-hit areas where relief camps are unable to provide the basic items to the affected people. Relief camps have been set up in all five tehsils of the district where affectees are forced to live under the sky without proper availability of food and drinking water.

A fresh flood warning has been sounded across Punjab province in the wake of possible massive deluge, as India spilled more than 70,000 cusecs of additional water into River Sutlej without prior information to Pakistani authorities, inundating dozens of villages in Ganda Singhwala area of Kasur district on Tuesday morning.

The government has decided to open a cut into the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) in Badin so that the pressure of water is released and it flows into Shakoor Lake, announced provincial minister Zulfiqar Mirza.

The lake sprawls over 300 square kilometres and two-thirds of it spills across the border into Indian territory. Historically, it is said to be the natural course for the saline water to flow, and this is where the excess water from the drain was directed.

ISLAMABAD -- Even as U.S.-Pakistani cooperation on anti-terrorism programs is withering, the United States is considering backing the construction of a giant, $12 billion dam in Pakistan that would be the largest civilian aid project the U.S. has undertaken here in decades.

Supporters of a U.S. role in the project say American participation would mend the United States' tattered image, going a long way toward quieting widespread anti-Americanism amid criticism that the U.S. lavishes money on Pakistan's military while doing little for the country's civilian population.

Looking at the globally emerging situations of water stress, former vice president of the World Bank Ismail Sergladin has rightly predicted that the next world war will be over water. I am not sure about other regions but the two that are considered the most dangerous in the world - the Middle East and South Asia - seem to be fully prepared. These two regions are war prone for a number of reasons, but conflicts of transborder river water sharing is most likely to lead to a war.

THOUSANDS of families are facing fresh misery in Southern Pakistan – as torrential rains hit Sindh province.   

Children’s charity Plan International says up to 300,000 people in Badin district have been left homeless by flooding.

The most vulnerable are being evacuated after one foot of water swamped their homes.

“Our specialist disaster response teams are on the ground in Sindh province where thousands of people are in need of food, shelter and safe drinking water,” says Haider Yaqub, Plan’s Country Director in Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 (APP): Tarbela and Mangla both dams’ water level is constantly mounting up as additional is water coming into national water reservoirs on Tuesday.After constant inflow of additional water now Trabela Dam’s water level has mounted up 152 feet from dead level while Mangla Dam’s water level has gone up 160 feet from dead level, private news channel reported.According to Flood Forecasting Division, currently Tarbela Dam’s total water level is 1530.26 feet; inflow of water is 170,500 cusecs and outflow is 105,000 cusecs.

While last year’s monsoon rains reined havoc and devastation for 20 million people across Pakistan including Sindh, this year’s much anticipated rainfall came as a ray of hope for many individuals that were dependant on nature for their livelihoods, such as the fishermen at Manchhar Lake who are looking to receive a hefty catch with the incoming fresh water. However, their expectations are laced with fear as the fish may be washed away through the drains that link the lake to the Indus River.

High tides caused breaching of drains, which have inundated hundreds of villages in Mirpurkhas, Badin, and Thatta districts. Besides, major towns like Pangrio, Jhudo, Malkani Sharif, Dighri and a large number of villages in Mirpurkhas, and more than 500 villages in Badin district have come under the water which is flowing towards the coastal areas. The government has stopped the flow of the main irrigation canals to avoid further loss, but the reports reaching here said the authorities could not plug the wide breaches in the drains.

Pakistan army launched a rescue operation on Monday in the rain-affected Badin district where at least half a million people have been displaced by flood water, officials said.

The recent monsoon rain has wreaked havoc across District Badin and its surrounding areas forcing a large number of residents to seek refuge in safer areas.

According to authorities in Badin, army has so far shifted nearly 100,000 people to temporary erected camps as well as in government schools and college buildings.