SUKKUR: Jacobabad wears a look of a besieged city abandoned by its residents with rail and road links connecting it to the rest of the country having been cut off for more than 20 days.
Only five per cent of the city’s 500,000 population still cling onto their homes, stubbornly refusing to leave.
The floodwaters unleashed by a breach in Tori bund near Ghauspur in Kandhkot-Kashmore district, which has till now widened to a kilometre, reached as far as Jacobabad after covering a long distance and flooded all its roads.
The city was though saved after cuts were made in Jamali bypass to divert the floodwater to Balochistan’s only green belt, Jafarabad and Naseerabad districts.
Since then Jacobabad remains cut off from the rest of the country and nothing has been done to restore its road or rail communication despite a lapse of more than 20 days.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah told journalists during a visit to Kandhkot on Saturday that the breach in Tori bund would be plugged within a week and the plugging work had been awarded to Frontier Works Organisation.
According to some journalists who are still in Jacobabad, the only mode of communication with the outer world is through boats.
Majority of people have fled the city, fearing onrushing floodwaters and now only 5 per cent people are living there who face acute shortage of daily use commodities and super inflation.
On the one hand shopkeepers are selling essential commodities at prohibitively exorbitant prices and on the other relief goods meant for the residents of the marooned city are allegedly being distributed among favourites or belonging to a particular political group.
To add insult to injury, these undeserving people are selling the relief goods at exorbitant prices and take undue advantage of their helplessness. But people are compelled to buy these goods at whatever price to keep body and soul together.
Efforts to contact Jacobabad DCO Kazim Jatoi failed because his cell phone number was switched off.
Besides, the city and adjoining areas are littered with carcasses of animals, giving off unbearable stench and disease among the marooned people who have nowhere to flee and no healthcare facility.
According to official sources, work on the restoration of road link between Shikarpur and Jacobabad has started and it may take two days more to reopen it.
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