SUKKUR, PAKISTAN // As a top irrigation official assured reporters last night that water levels at a major barrage on the Indus were falling, the river began flooding homes and breaching the embankment less than a kilometre away. "The level has gone down by 50,000 cusecs [cubic feet per second] today. We released some water into canals [upstream] and we expect levels to drop further," Sindh province's irrigation minister, Saifullah Khan Dharejo, said at the District Coordination Office headquarters near the Sukkur barrage. "It had been rising for four days, so this is the first good news."
But in a stark contradiction, only a few minutes' drive upstream, homes along the river that first began flooding late on Sunday had been inundated by up to 1.5 metres of water. By late afternoon the overflow was beginning to sprout through the brick boundary walls. They run in front of the houses and are the last line of defence between the Indus and Bandar Road, which runs parallel to the river and from where Sukkur's densely populated inner-city begins.
Residents worked furiously to reinforce the walls with bricks and other materials as at least two teams of soldiers filled bags with dirt to help patch the leaks. "The water has risen by four feet [1.2 metres] since last night," said Muhammad Ejaz, as he stood behind a newly constructed wall in front of his flooded courtyard. "The people here are doing this work to save the city themselves. The army is helping but not the government, not the politicians," he said, highlighting the distinction, both perceived and real, between Pakistan's civilian government and military.
While moderate rain fell, hundreds of people gathered in the street watching helplessly as water trickled through cracks and surged up through drainage pipes. Residents of homes and apartment buildings on the opposite side of Bandar Road gathered at their windows, balconies and on roofs to watch the drama below. "People right on the river are leaving," said Muhammad Nisar, 18. "On the other side people are watching before deciding."
A father holding his young son stood in front of his house yelled across the increasingly muddy road: "Has it come through yet? What is going on?" Noorudin Shaikh, 27, who lives a few blocks further into the city, said that he would most likely be leaving with his family that night to stay with relatives in Thukkar, a nearby town on higher ground. But some people were refusing to leave. As his wife and son filled buckets with water and carried them out of their brick and thatch house to dump back into the river, which by that time was lapping at their boundary wall, Ali Muhammad asked: "Where will we go? This is all we have."
Further up Bandar Road, dozens of men and three soldiers gathered at a jetty leading into the Indus. Perhaps 500 metres away on a small island sits Sadhu Bela, a Hindu shrine, that was beginning to sink under the rising brown waters. According to the men, two Hindu priests had decided to stay in the shrine to protect its ancient statues. Nearby, but beyond a police cordon that prevented people from accessing the parts of Bandar Road that were beginning to flood, people displaced from their villages in Shikarpur and Kashmore were huddled under makeshift tents. They were oblivious to the frantic work being done to hold back the river.
People only a few blocks into the city were similarly unaware, as many sipped tea at roadside stalls and enjoyed the cool rain. tkhan@thenational.ae
