Water level at Kotri Barrage crosses 900,000 cusecs

Several villages in Hyderabad are inundated as Kotri Barrage braces for the worst flood in 50 years. The super flood passing through Kotri will take at least six days to subside.

The provincial government is monitoring the situation at dykes as the water pressure builds up. More than 900,000 cusecs of water is likely to pass through the barrage.

Irrigation experts said that the current flood torrent has broken the record of the 1976 floods.

Meanwhile flood water has entered parts of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) building in Hyderabad. Water has already caused devastation in Ghauspur, Thul, Jacobabad, Garhi Khairu and other adjoining areas.

Water pressure at Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD) III has been reduced by making breaches at three points and efforts are underway to keep the safety dyke in ShahdadKot intact.

Flood torrents from Garhi Khairu and Balochistan have reached Hamal Lake. For the past ten days, transport of food items between Sindh and Balochistan are at a halt due to suspension of the road link between the two provinces.

The cyclone that broke Pakistan’s back

It wiped out villages. Destroyed crops. Over 3.6 million people were directly affected. Most estimates suggest that half a million died; some suggest as many as one million perished. Nearly 85 per cent of the area was destroyed. Three months after the catastrophe some 75 per cent of the population was receiving food from relief workers.

It happened in Pakistan. Yet few Pakistanis even know of it by name. Fewer still remember that it eventually contributed to Pakistan’s break-up. The 1970 Cyclone Bhola hit then East Pakistan on November 12, 1970.

Historians tend to agree that although there were many other forces at work, the devastation caused by the cyclone and the widespread view that the government had mismanaged the relief efforts and West Pakistan had generally shown an attitude of neglect, contributed to high levels of anti-West Pakistan feeling, a sweeping victory for the Awami League, and eventually the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.

Such, then, are the forces of nature. And such are the forces of history.

As we hear newspaper headlines proclaiming the historic magnitude and devastation wrought by the floods on our plains, it is worth remembering that 40 years ago The New York Times was describing another calamity in Pakistan as the “worst catastrophe of the century”. Much more importantly, we should pay close attention to the lessons of history, and the lessons of nature.

The lesson of how policy mismanagement led to public dissatisfaction and eventually contributed to national dismemberment. Of course, this is not an entirely parallel situation since so much more had already gone wrong in the East Pakistan case — and the cyclone was a contributor to, not the cause, of how history unfolded — but Bhola’s lessons should not be lost on the politicians, policy-makers and people of Pakistan.