Why Karachi Floods | Hacker News Reader

Why Karachi Floods

dawn.com

136 pointsallthings37 comments

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.

I would say its both, not only Karachi was flooded but the whole Sindh and PPP has been in Sindh for the last 12-13 years. The Sindh provincial ministers during the early monsoon spell were even on the roads saying everything is okay and didn't even cleared out the nullahs for which NDMA had to be brought in. As long as there is no accountability in Pakistan I can easily say this country will never prosper. PPP keeps on playing politics and the victim card while making their ministers become billionaires, look at Zardari he spent the major part of his life and when released from prison becomes a billionaire instantly. Then there is his son Bilawal, its a line of vultures in Pakistan, just one after the another

MQM and the Mayor is still waiting to receive a mandate from the provincial government. All power lies with the PPP in Karachi.

MQM and coalition was brought in power in 1983. Since then PPP has no mandate, they have no power to run the city. There are no funds available to any PPP representative in Karachi. All development or non-development projects run by the City administration. It is always the winning parties who decide about city development. How come a party which doesn't have any significant representation in city administration for 40 years is responsible for its development??? Karachi's city administration has been receiving one of the largest funds than any other city in Pakistan.

I find no merit in discussing on whom, PPP, or MQM, to throw the blame on for Karachi situation. The result will largely be the same if you swap them. Both Karachi (MQM's turf,) and rural Sindh (PPP's turf) are ran terribly bad.

You will find that facts don't agree with your statements. https://www.dawn.com/news/1464791

While I find the discussion of who is worse of PPP or MQM beyond meaningless, I want to state that this mean little when city's administration was effectively defunct for decades.

Up until around 2015, the de-facto Mayor slash Don of Karachi was Altaf Bhai, and Liyari gangs were his revenue department.

...

Only in the land of pure:

> Pakistan: Karachi mayor to run office from prison

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/pakistan-karachi-mayo...

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.

As a Westerner who travels to Pakistan once in a while, of the three biggest cities (Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad), Karachi seems like an outlier in terms of corruption, even for Pakistan, with entrenched mafia rule. I don't know the reasons this is so in Karachi, perhaps as the port city smuggling is big there.

In terms of infrastructure, Karachi also seems different as you said, with lots of apartment buildings, where other cities like Lahore is almost exclusively villas, so density will be higher with more strain on infrastructure.

A very interesting development is the premiership of Imran Khan who is politically independent (excluding being beholden to the military as is all political leaders) and genuinely making a big effort in fighting corruption. It will be interesting to see how much he can accomplish.

We all thought he will remain politically independent. He isn't and never was. I was even part of his early campaigns as a youngster who were his main focus at the time. He is better and many aspects very different, but political system including almost everyone surrounding him are garbage. He is facing the same challenges now for which he use to harshly criticize previous governments. I stopped watching news but the biggest is probably currency being devalued continuously.

>>premier city of the affluent province of Punjab hosts far better infrastructure.

Curious. Which city is this?

> premier city of the affluent province of Punjab hosts far better infrastructure.

If I were to guess, it is because the political power has long rested with Pakistani Punjabis and Lahore is their capital city. Whilst Karachi has long been relegated as city of migrants.

I followed some Twitter troll fight during their flooding crisis. Apparently they have some constitutional amendment which gives local/state governments complete ownership of their local issues.

I don't recall what that was. But it looked like classic central government vs state government fight.

Yes. All these stuff needs to be taken care by provincial govt as per 18th amendment which transfers power to provinces but some how incompetent Sind govt blames the center.

- I am from Karachi.

Lahore.

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.

From what I understand the GDP of Bangalore enriches the federal body more than the state. The state gets money from center based on the population of state as a whole. So the state politicians do not have much skin in the game to try to keep Bangalore sustainable.

Would be happy to be corrected.

I'd say the situation is even more twisted. This policy effectively motivates the state politicians to keep things unsustainable in order for them to make money (indirectly) off scarce resources in the city.

I'm curious. What people exactly are "apathetic docile don't cares here", and why?

Sounds like Silicon Valley in America, especially with transit and housing.

Oh, you just can't compare Marathahalli or Silk Board with the 101, 680, 280 or 880. None of the latter even come close. They're both horrible in their own way, but I'd say Bangalore is worse. You don't often find ambulances stranded in traffic in SV, for instance. This is (was, until the pandemic?) a daily occurrence out here.

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.

In context of Pakistan, a cantonment is still is what is defined by the 1924 Cantonment Act, and not just a geographical connotation. As I understand, in India, a place may well be called a cantonment for historical reasons only, while being a regular town/city/district for administrative purposes.

And that law is defining it very, very poorly, and it is where the trouble with them comes from. Per the Act, a cantonment is “any place … in which any part of the regular forces or the regular air force of Pakistan is quartered … or is required for the service of such forces…”

Now decide on the boundary of the “any place,” which has never been historically defined, and delineations of jurisdictions with non cantoned off area.

Some cantonments never had defined boundaries, and grew to size of cities. Some, on other hand, began to envelop more and more of its host cities' area as definitions of their boundaries were reinterpreted.

Another matter is whether garbage removal, or provision of other utilities in a cantonment a duty of its own cantonal authority, or a region/county/city hosting it?

People who wrote that law wrote it before even electricity was a thing, and never though of such things.

Indian armed-forces cantonments are amazing. Practically the best place to live in India.

Incredible schooling, all the resources you need and a level of security that provides a ton of freedom.

I can practically pick out someone who has grown up on a cantonment. Everything from their demeanor, breadth of skills and a very special kind of cynical liberalism immediately gives it away.

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.

Ideally, they should be, but there are just too many administrative divisions already, and adding 6+ more to them will not do good. There is a need to dramatically simplify the "topology" of Karachi's government.

As it is now, just finding out who orders whom in Karachi is neigh impossible. One needs a special talent to think of a government system this convoluted.

Sounds like the ancien régime in pre revolutionary France; the absolute mess of tangled powers, rights, obligations, and jurisdictions made well meaning reform almost impossible, and gave untold ammunition to those more interested in obstructionism to maintain the status quo.

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).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_sewers [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

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.

Remember - PK also has nuclear weapons, and they are not very careful with them.[0]

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/

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.

http://www.chowrangi.pk/why-karachi-suffer-when-it-rains.htm...

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