DADU: The irrigation authorities have made three cuts in the Indus Highway as the floodwater discharged from Manchar Lake’s breaches is now heading towards Dadu district’s main city after flooding several towns and hundreds of villages over the last week.
As per details, the authorities administered three cuts in the Indus Highway to save Dadu city from flooding after floodwater affected parts of Pir Shahnawaz, Kamal Khan and Yar Mohammad Kalhoro of Dadu taluka.
On Saturday, a ring bund was being reinforced around Dadu bypass to stop water flowing from two ruptures in Bhan Syedabad-Johi bund.
The water was around 4 kilometers away from Dadu by Sunday evening. Rumors about an emergency evacuation from Dadu were doing the rounds since morning, unnerving the people who were time and again reassured by the government that there was no threat of flooding.
However, the deputy commissioner later clarified that no emergency alert had been issued.
The Sindh Prisons Department shifted 319 prisoners from Dadu jail to Hyderabad and some other prisons in the province.
Moreover, Manchar Lake floodwater, which is 10 times the lake’s normal capacity, deluged the grid station in Bhan Syedabad, depriving the entire town of electricity as well as submerging rice mills, shops and houses along the bypass.
However, Bhan Syedabad town’s ring bund withstood the deluge’s pressure. The cuts made to the lake led to a reduction in the floodwater level which had hit the ring dyke protecting Mehar taluka of Dadu district.
On the other hand, a rupture in the protective embankment of Johi town of Dadu was timely plugged to prevent inundation of the town where residents spent over a week volunteering for the reinforcement of the bund.
As many as 33 million people of the 220 million Pakistanis have been affected in some way by the floods that swept away houses, roads, railways and bridges and submerged around 4 million acres of farmland. Pakistan has estimated the financial loss so far at around $30 billion.
