It's clear to everyone in Karachi that it has been neglected by the provincial government lead by the People's Party of Pakistan (PPP). PPP is the most corrupt entity in the country. At least other governments do 'some' development while filling their coffers. PPP undoes even the development of previous governments to fill their coffers. Karachi's institutions have been filled with political appointees with little or no merit. Everyone appointed to run the country is only interested in filling up their pockets. Even slight rains that would be unnoticeable in any other part of the country fills up sewerage lines leaking them out. This is not new. What's new is that this years rains have been unprecedentent and even upscale areas such as DHA are affected, which is why all the commotion in the media.
Since early 1980s, Karachi city is not under PPP govt. So it really doesn't matter how corrupt Pakistan Peoples Party is, Karachi has not been voting for them for nearly 40 years now. It is always MQM with some coalition who runs Karachi. Right now PPP has only 3 NA seats from Karachi.
As an Indian watching these events, it refreshes my memories of flooding in Indian cities(Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore etc). Which are almost of the same scale if not more or less.
I wonder if the entirety of the Indian subcontinent suffers from the same long standing issues of governance, disdain for law, corruption and in general total apathy towards one's surroundings.
As a native Bangalorean. I've seen the city shredded to literal garbage, there are tall housing complexes in places where there were lakes, and there are real estate developments in natural valleys. Existing lakes have been long encroached upon, and turned into cesspools receiving sewage from nearby apartments. These flats sell for premium rates as they are ironically called 'lakeview'.
Every few months a famous lake called Bellandur lake catches fire, due to methane emissions. Also there is just unimaginable amount of dust and pollution, to a point you can feel the dust in your mouth. Dengue outbreaks are common here. What's shocking in all of this people continue to buy these 'lakeview' flats. Continue to buy properties in lands which are encroaching lakes.
I remember during the Chennai floods, some one had posted how the velachery lake had been transformed into a rectangle after years of encroachment, the whole area was flooded.
This is above and beyond the fact that plastic littering, and garbage disposal in general is so bad that it clogs the whatever little drains exist.
Didn't know that Pakistan hasn't changed all that much since partition. May be some one from Pakistan can talk about how it is there.
There is some variability in the state of cities across Pakistan.
Karachi is the largest and most dense city by a significant margin, so its needs are much greater.
In comparison, Lahore, the second largest city in the country, and the premier city of the affluent province of Punjab hosts far better infrastructure. Consequently, it suffers a mere fraction of the magnitude of such issues as Karachi. In addition to a different geography, which, of course, is a significant factor, Lahore has received much greater investment of political will, civic planning and funds.
While Indian cities are definitely challenged infrastructure-wise in a lot of ways, the specific problem of rainwater management deserves to be given more focused attention.
Most Indian cities receive a ton of rainfall in the span of a few weeks, and hence infrastructure needs to be designed for peak rainfall that is perhaps 5-10x of average rainfall. As with all things, designing a system to handle 5-10x peak utilization is significantly more complex and expensive, especially when it will be in peak use for maybe 1 of 52 weeks of the year.
In some cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore etc., the economic downsides have finally started to outweigh the costs of dealing with this problem - but lack of local funding and executive leadership will probably keep infrastructure playing catch-up with future floods and climate change events. I would argue this applies to all other problems that happen due to scale of Indian urban areas - heat management, air pollution, waste disposal, traffic etc.
Oh man don't get me started on Bengaluru. My tier 2 hometown sees more infrastructure activities than this silicon valley of India. People are just apathetic docile don't cares here. How come with an enormous budget and a rich state it's sooo bad? Doesn't matter who is in power here, same story all around.
I understand this is a fairly technical article but I really wish there were photos of the drainage and sewage systems being talked about, particularly with respect to the clogging and illegal infill/building, instead of just pictures of Karachi's of flooded roads. It would really help to visualize just how much of the planned/built flood control flows have been compromised by corrupt development.
> Meanwhile, a solid waste recycling industry, mostly in the informal sector, developed in Karachi over the years. [...] The contractors organising this activity pay the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) staff to not pick up the garbage so that the picking can be made easier.
> solid waste has been used for reclaiming land from the sea for both low income and elite residential purposes. Such reclamation is, strictly speaking, illegal in both cases. Informal developers informally arrange for KMC trucks to deposit their solid waste on the mangrove marshes and hire KMC tractors to spread and compact it.
Whoa. That's some next level corruption. Where it actually starts to supply infrastructure that should exist legally but apparently doesn't.
Cantonments need to be abolished, and stricken out from the law. It's a colonial anachronism used int the past to shield British military from the local jurisdiction.
Now they just add to complete jurisdictional—topological clusterf__k.
The same is for governments of other city's subdivisions.
The lion share of Karachi's troubles is from super unclear jurisdiction over much of its function, with each player in local government throwing hot potato problems to the next one in the chain.
Some Indian cities have Cantonments, I used to live in one such city. The roads in the cantonment were in better condition compared to the city roads and cantonments areas are much cleaner and well maintained compared to the city parts.
Can't the cantonment just function like its own local body working alongside the other local bodies, with proportionate allocation of budget?
I understand with the influence the defence establishment wields in the affairs, it has a greater say but isn't it in their interest to keep the financial hub of their country healthy.
The problem, as with all things in Karachi, is systemic.
It results from lack of ownership which makes accountability hard (politicized institutions with diverging agendas). During these rains, an entire township (Naya Nazimabad) sank underwater and many areas are still waterlogged. This township was built on top of a low-lying lake that was reclaimed. The approval of such projects involves dozens of authorities, each of whom charges an "expediency fees" and corruption is deep rooted within them. An officer who comes in for a 2-4 year tenure on low government salaries is incentivized to maximize his earnings during his short tenure.
The second is the lack of engineering involvement. The government sector doesn't exactly attract the top talent at good salaries. The tenders on the other hand are awarded based on nepotism and personal gain. There is a long list of botched projects in the civil sector. None of the desalination and water treatments plants are operational, in the entire city, for example. They have not been for years now.
The sewerage infrastructure in many parts of the city, as exists right now, is worse than the French sewers built in the 14th century[1]. These sewers are open-top and become dumping grounds for garbage due to lack of a garbage collection infrastructure. The encroachments around and above these sewers fall victim to Tragedy of Commons[2]. The whole thing is a mess with no easy solution and if this years' heavy rainfalls become a future trend, the situation will be unsustainable. Many homes were waterlogged for days and weeks with no power or connectivity (cell towers have around 24-48 hours of standby power after which they went down).
What made it different this time is that chick housing in DHA, and Clifton got flooded, and people living there can shout loud enough for the establishment to care
Unless this, common people wouldn't be so happy seeing DHA residents swimming.
The systematic encroachment, lack of infrastructure development/ maintenance and criminal negligence by the concerned authorities have turned Karachi into an urban disaster. Every time it rains, Karachi sinks.
Here's a blog post from 2009, things have became worse now.
[+] [-] hyder_m29|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tegeek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kamaal|5 years ago|reply
I wonder if the entirety of the Indian subcontinent suffers from the same long standing issues of governance, disdain for law, corruption and in general total apathy towards one's surroundings.
As a native Bangalorean. I've seen the city shredded to literal garbage, there are tall housing complexes in places where there were lakes, and there are real estate developments in natural valleys. Existing lakes have been long encroached upon, and turned into cesspools receiving sewage from nearby apartments. These flats sell for premium rates as they are ironically called 'lakeview'.
Every few months a famous lake called Bellandur lake catches fire, due to methane emissions. Also there is just unimaginable amount of dust and pollution, to a point you can feel the dust in your mouth. Dengue outbreaks are common here. What's shocking in all of this people continue to buy these 'lakeview' flats. Continue to buy properties in lands which are encroaching lakes.
I remember during the Chennai floods, some one had posted how the velachery lake had been transformed into a rectangle after years of encroachment, the whole area was flooded.
This is above and beyond the fact that plastic littering, and garbage disposal in general is so bad that it clogs the whatever little drains exist.
Didn't know that Pakistan hasn't changed all that much since partition. May be some one from Pakistan can talk about how it is there.
[+] [-] nfca|5 years ago|reply
Karachi is the largest and most dense city by a significant margin, so its needs are much greater.
In comparison, Lahore, the second largest city in the country, and the premier city of the affluent province of Punjab hosts far better infrastructure. Consequently, it suffers a mere fraction of the magnitude of such issues as Karachi. In addition to a different geography, which, of course, is a significant factor, Lahore has received much greater investment of political will, civic planning and funds.
[+] [-] blueblisters|5 years ago|reply
Most Indian cities receive a ton of rainfall in the span of a few weeks, and hence infrastructure needs to be designed for peak rainfall that is perhaps 5-10x of average rainfall. As with all things, designing a system to handle 5-10x peak utilization is significantly more complex and expensive, especially when it will be in peak use for maybe 1 of 52 weeks of the year.
In some cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore etc., the economic downsides have finally started to outweigh the costs of dealing with this problem - but lack of local funding and executive leadership will probably keep infrastructure playing catch-up with future floods and climate change events. I would argue this applies to all other problems that happen due to scale of Indian urban areas - heat management, air pollution, waste disposal, traffic etc.
[+] [-] eklavya|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HeXetic|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brazzy|5 years ago|reply
> solid waste has been used for reclaiming land from the sea for both low income and elite residential purposes. Such reclamation is, strictly speaking, illegal in both cases. Informal developers informally arrange for KMC trucks to deposit their solid waste on the mangrove marshes and hire KMC tractors to spread and compact it.
Whoa. That's some next level corruption. Where it actually starts to supply infrastructure that should exist legally but apparently doesn't.
[+] [-] baybal2|5 years ago|reply
Now they just add to complete jurisdictional—topological clusterf__k.
The same is for governments of other city's subdivisions.
The lion share of Karachi's troubles is from super unclear jurisdiction over much of its function, with each player in local government throwing hot potato problems to the next one in the chain.
[+] [-] sumedh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] actuator|5 years ago|reply
I understand with the influence the defence establishment wields in the affairs, it has a greater say but isn't it in their interest to keep the financial hub of their country healthy.
[+] [-] aleem|5 years ago|reply
It results from lack of ownership which makes accountability hard (politicized institutions with diverging agendas). During these rains, an entire township (Naya Nazimabad) sank underwater and many areas are still waterlogged. This township was built on top of a low-lying lake that was reclaimed. The approval of such projects involves dozens of authorities, each of whom charges an "expediency fees" and corruption is deep rooted within them. An officer who comes in for a 2-4 year tenure on low government salaries is incentivized to maximize his earnings during his short tenure.
The second is the lack of engineering involvement. The government sector doesn't exactly attract the top talent at good salaries. The tenders on the other hand are awarded based on nepotism and personal gain. There is a long list of botched projects in the civil sector. None of the desalination and water treatments plants are operational, in the entire city, for example. They have not been for years now.
The sewerage infrastructure in many parts of the city, as exists right now, is worse than the French sewers built in the 14th century[1]. These sewers are open-top and become dumping grounds for garbage due to lack of a garbage collection infrastructure. The encroachments around and above these sewers fall victim to Tragedy of Commons[2]. The whole thing is a mess with no easy solution and if this years' heavy rainfalls become a future trend, the situation will be unsustainable. Many homes were waterlogged for days and weeks with no power or connectivity (cell towers have around 24-48 hours of standby power after which they went down).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_sewers [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
[+] [-] baybal2|5 years ago|reply
Unless this, common people wouldn't be so happy seeing DHA residents swimming.
[+] [-] game_the0ry|5 years ago|reply
As a Pakistani myself, I can't be more disappointed with my country of origin.
For the Pakistanis here - it's worth criticizing our home nation and elders, otherwise it won't get any better. And I want it to get better.
[0] https://www.wired.com/2011/11/pakistan-nukes-delivery-vans/
[+] [-] pythonbase|5 years ago|reply
Here's a blog post from 2009, things have became worse now.
http://www.chowrangi.pk/why-karachi-suffer-when-it-rains.htm...