Explained: How Pakistan is battling to stop Manchar Lake from bursting amid floods

Already reeling from unprecedented floods, Pakistani officials are now waging a battle to stop the country’s largest freshwater lake from overflowing.

Sindh’s Manchar Lake is dangerously full after record monsoons that inundated a third of Pakistan and killed over 1,300 people since mid-June.

On Tuesday officials yet again attempted to lower water levels after making previous attempts on Monday and Sunday.

Four breaches of the lake’s banks so far – to protect areas downstream – have displaced over 100,000 people.

Let’s take a closer look at Manchar Lake and how officials are trying to stop it from overflowing:

Embankment breaches at two more points

As per Geo News,  Manchar Lake lies west of the Indus River.

While it varies in size according to the season and rainfall, but is currently spread over as wide an area as anyone can recall.

The embankment at Manchar Lake was breached at two more points (near the RD-50 and RD-52) to lower the reservoir’s water level which remained dangerously high, as per the report.

Geo News quoted Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro as saying the water level in the lake had not receded despite a controlled breach on Sunday.

However, the pressure in Dadu, Khairpur Nathan Shah and Mehar would ease after the new cuts, he added.

Geo News cited local reports as saying  s heavy pressure in the MNV drain had put thousands of people living in Dadu at risk. The water is afoot below the dam of the MNV drain near Kari Mori.

As per BBC, residents near the lake are using government machinery to strengthen embankments to try to avoid a catastrophic, unplanned overspill.

“We have widened the earlier breach at Manchar to reduce the rising water level,” Sindh irrigation minister Jam Khan Shoro told Reuters on Monday.

Sindh province Information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon told AFP Monday that engineers had to cut a channel into Manchar Lake to drain water that was threatening the towns of Sehwan and Bhan Saeedabad, with a combined population of nearly half a million.

“There is nowhere to shower or go to the bathroom,” said Zebunnisa Bibi, sheltering near Fazilpur, in Punjab province, where 65 tents are now home to more than 500 people who fled their inundated villages for higher land.

Similar tent camps have mushroomed across much of the south and west of Pakistan, where rain has nowhere to drain because rivers are already in full flow as a result of torrential downpours in the north.

Still, thousands had to be evacuated from smaller settlements submerged by the newly directed channel.

“The flood water was diverted but the threat is still far from over,” Memon said. “We are trying our best to stop the inundation of more villages.”

On Sunday, officials deliberately breached the lake in hopes that it would stop it from further bursting its banks and inundating more densely-populated areas, as per BBC.

The move affecting 400 villages and around 135,000 people was controversial.

The lake straddles two districts, Dadu and Jamshoro, both home to hundreds of thousands of people, and about 80 per cent of the region is already underwater.

“There are three breaches in the lake, two by plan, one is unplanned breach. It is our target that our big cities, towns, we can save them,” Shoro told the BBC.

While many were given advance warning, not everyone took heed.

Some simply refused to leave their homes and their livestock, as per BBC.

“After the breach at Manchar, the water has started to flow, earlier it was sort of stagnant,”  resident Akbar Lashari told Reuters Sunday.

Much of Sindh and parts of Balochistan have become a vast landscape of water, with displaced locals huddled miserably on elevated roads, rail tracks and other high ground.

Human and animal waste in the fetid water attracts swarms of flies, while outbreaks of dengue are being reported from mosquitos breeding in the swamplands.

Dr Deedar Hussain from Pakistan’s health department told CNN he feared of an outbreak of waterborne diseases if the flood waters do not recede fast enough

“Many patients have come to us. According to our register, we have received 16,000 patients (from over the district). Mostly patients are suffering from allergy because of (flood) water, and there are patients suffering from diarrhea and fever. Also there are patients suffering from malaria as we are conducting malaria parasite tests on them,” Hussain told Reuters on Saturday.

One pregnant woman at a camp in Punjab said she was desperate for medical attention for a baby due any day now.

The mother-of-five knows it could be a difficult birth, as the baby has not shifted from the breech position.

“I need a doctor or a midwife. What if something happens to my child?” said Fahmidah Bibi.

The United Nations Population Fund said at the weekend there were at least 128,000 pregnant women in flood-hit areas who urgently need care – with 42,000 expected to give birth in the next three months.

Climate change to blame

Pakistan receives heavy – often destructive – rains during its annual monsoon season, which are crucial for agriculture and water supplies.

But such intense downpours have not been seen for decades.

Pakistani officials blame climate change, which is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather around the world.

Pakistan is responsible for less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is eighth on a list compiled by the NGO Germanwatch of countries deemed most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change.

A massive army-led relief operation is in full swing, but the country’s leaders have admitted being overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis and appealed for international help.

Pakistan in crisis

Meanwhile, the death toll from floods rose to 1,325 on Tuesday after another 11 people died across the country.

The majority of 522 people died in Sindh, followed by 289 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 260 in Balochistan, 189 in Punjab, 42 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, 22 in Gilgit-Baltistan and one in Islamabad, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

At least 12,703 people have been injured in floods which also damaged 5,735 km of roads.

Authorities were working to evacuate people and provide relief to the flood victims. At least 363 army helicopters had been flown to various areas as part of relief efforts.

“In the last 24 hours, 25 sorties have flown and evacuated 131 stranded individuals and delivered 32 tons of relief items to flood affectees,” the Army said, adding so far 3,716 stranded Individuals had been evacuated through these helicopter sorties.

There were 147 relief camps in Sindh, South Punjab and Balochistan while 284 relief item collection points had been established across the country.

“More than 250 medical camps established so far in which more than 97,000 patients have been treated all across the country and provided 3-5 days’ free medicine,” according to the data shared by the government.

Several international aid agencies were beginning to arrive in flood-ravaged Pakistan on Monday, delivering much-needed food, clean water and medicines to victims.

Japan announced that it will provide emergency grant assistance of $7 million to Pakistan, according to a news release issued by the Japanese embassy.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also said it was scaling up support to Pakistan.

It said that the first three of nine scheduled flights had arrived on Monday in Pakistan — with the other five on their way. The aid included 40,000 sleeping mats, nearly 15,000 kitchen sets and some 5,000 multi-purpose tarpaulins.

The UNHCR said that an additional six flights are scheduled from Dubai for Wednesday and Thursday, with 4,500 sleeping mats, 400 tarpaulins, and nearly 5,000 kitchen sets.

“UNHCR trucks carrying tents for some 11,000 families are also on the road from Uzbekistan, with more convoys scheduled,” the UN refugee agency said.

With inputs from agencies

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