Met authorities fear Tsunami would hit coastal belts of Sindh, Balochistan soon

KARACHI: The Pakistan Meteorological Department has warned that Tsunami would hit coastal belts of Sindh and Baluchistan likely to be very soon.

On Thursday, at the inaugural session of the workshop Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) director general Muhammad Riaz presented some suggestions and upcoming challenges likely to be faced by coastal belts of Pakistan saying that, according to him the tsunami genic earthquake fault zone in sea has completed its time scale and return period after damaging Makran Coastal belt earlier in 1945. It is posing a serious threat to hit this time some other coastal belts of Sindh and Baluchistan too.

Moreover, the concerns revealed during the briefing attended by experts and officials at ‘Stakeholders’ workshop on mitigating tsunami risk further came up with the suggestions to limit the damage will cause because natural disasters are inevitable. Muhammad Riaz said that, “What is needed to do is to establish a strong early-warning system and make people more aware about the required response in such a situation.”

Though, he further asserted, “You would find here torrential rains in a short period of monsoon which leads to flooding. But one specific system is more intense, challenging and deadly which is active along the Sindh-Makran coast. We have tsunamigenic earthquake fault zone here which can trigger [a disaster] anytime. This is called Makran subduction zone and it is the most vulnerable area which can produce earthquake and tsunami anytime.”

The active faulty lines are found to be 40 kilometers away from the Pakistan’s coast and if it generated a tsunami or earthquake, it would take hardly five minutes to hit the towns along the coastal belt of Sindh and Baluchistan. Mr Riaz further elaborates the risk factors that, “Our models and some softwares suggest that tsunami genic earthquake fault zones under Makran subduction zone would have only five or maximum 30 minutes to trigger. Its travelling time is too short.”

Earlier, in 1945 these tsunami genic have caused disastrous damage to Makran Coast. Now after 75 years it has competed its term and it can trigger the same situation again anytime soon.