LARKANA: As floodwaters gushing from breaches in the Tori and Begari dykes piled pressure on an improvised embankment near Shahdadkot, authorities warned the hours between Saturday midnight and daybreak were critical for the town.
The administration sought the Army’s help for evacuation of Shahdadkot while navy helicopters and boats plucked the marooned from Garhi Khairo.
Late into the evening, the authorities made a desperate move to cut the road between Shahdadkot and Balochistan to deflect waters off Shahdadkot.
Ghulam Yaseen Shar, District Coordination Officer of Qambar-Shahdadkot, told Dawn that the night was critical because floodwaters from Tori and Begari were advancing on a newly-built embankment around the town. Seepage had taken place from portions of the dyke.
The DCO said the torrents were flowing into the Right Bank Outfall Drain-III towards the Hamal lake.
Talking to journalists, chief of the Chandio tribes, Sardar Khan, said the banks of the RBOD-III were not strong enough to resist the fury of the Indus.
He said the Warah town would be inundated once banks of the RBOD-III gave way.
“We have decided to build an embankment along the 30km Naseer Shakh to avert the danger,” he added.
Sardar Khan said heavy machinery should be sent urgently to build a dyke for saving towns from waters flowing towards Manchhar.
The DCO said a slow flow into the RBOD-III was a matter of concern.
As fears of flooding gripped the town, people began streaming out of Shahdadkot with whatever they could lay their hands on, clogging the motorway.
Sindh Food Minister Mir Nadir Magsi said he was not clear about the volume of waters estimated to flood the region.
The waters were flowing smoothly into the RBOD, but their velocity was slow. In an attempt to calm a terrified populace, he said if the waters continued to flow at the present pace, the threat to Shahdadkot would fizzle out.
According to the minister, the town would be in danger only if the flow turned towards the Shahdadkot-Ratodero road.
Ramesh Lal, an MNA, said floodwaters had touched a recently built four-feet high embankment. The barrier turned out to be flimsy, he added, as it was just two feet higher than the water level.
The legislator said about 90 per cent of the population had left while the remaining had chosen to stay back to guard property.
Army and navy helicopters airdropped food packets to marooned people in Garhi Khairo and adjoining areas.
Seepage from the embankment at the Gul Hassan Brohi village and Brohi petrol pump, near the motorway, was plugged after frantic attempts through the day.
Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had an aerial view of the affected areas on Saturday and discussed the situation with provincial Ministers Ayaz Soomro, Nadir Magsi and Jam Saifullah Dharejo.
According to sources, the Rangers and Magsi tribesmen pre-empted an attempt by members of a local tribe to divert the waters by resorting to illegal cuts in embankments.
ELECTROCUTED
Six people died and 24 others, including eight women and children, were injured when a high-tension electricity wire fell on their tractor-trolley on the Indus Highway near Kashmore.
The tractor-trolley, which was taking 30 flood-affected people and their livestock to safe areas, hit an electric pole.
ROBBERY
Displaced Hindu families returning home in Jacobabad on three wagons were robbed of their belongings near Dodapur.
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