A cut was made in the Manchar Lake in Sehwan tehsil to save people, Sharjeel Memon, the Sindh information minister, said on Sunday. But the decision would still affect five union councils.

“Around 125,000 people have to be displaced to near areas,” he said while addressing a press conference in Hyderabad. “All the government machinery is on the ground. Attention is being given to most affected areas.”

The information minister’s presser came as the Jamshoro district administration ordered the people near the lake to evacuate the area after the water level rose to a “dangerous level” in Manchar Lake.

“The embankments of Manchar Lake are likely to break at any time, so people are requested to evacuate the area and should go to safe places,” Radio Pakistan reported while citing the official handout. So far the safe places are the highways which are dry and above the villages. It added that there was “pressure on the dam of Manchar Lake from RD 54 to RD 58” and the water level in the lake started to rise.

He added that the government would shift the people to safe locations at the time when water would recede from the cut. The decision was taken by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah after consulting experts.

Memon said that press conferences centred around the flood situation would be held on a daily basis to update the international community on it.

Sehwan ‘saved’

The cut was made in RD-14 and RD-15, the embankments near Sehwan, to divert the water’s course from Manchar Lake to small and big rural areas. Experts feared that the rise in water level could have drowned Sehwan.

The cut was made on the Lal Bagh side as the left side was weak. Aaj News reported that there was not any irrigation staff on the site.

But the cut made has been made at a section where there “was a low pressure” of the water, sources said. High pressure was at the upper and Sehwan side.

This decision would impact fewer villages, irrigation officials told Aaj News, adding that 300,000 population city Bhan Syedabad and Sehwan would have drowned if the cut was made from another side.

Water was draining from the cut, however, at a higher pace. It would impact three to four union councils which are home to several villages. Locals complained that the government only asked them to leave the area.

Many people were already displaced to safer locations after the administration’s Saturday directive. The administration has hinted at making two more cuts to divert water’s route.

A similar situation happened during the 2010 floods and a cut was made that affected many villages.

Edhi urges govt to lift ban on some NGOs over floods

The Edhi Foundation urged the government on Friday to lift a years-old ban on a number of international non-governmental organisations so they can help with relief efforts following catastrophic floods, Reuters reported.

Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in northern mountains have brought floods that have killed at least 1,208 people, destroyed infrastructure and inundated two million acres of agricultural lands.

“I appeal to the government to immediately lift ban on the international NGOs for one year so they could help people,” Faisal Edhi, chief of the Edhi Foundation, told reporters on Friday.

Pakistan began a crackdown on international NGOs almost a decade ago, accusing them of “anti-state activities” in Pakistan. By 2018, a number of them had officially been asked to leave on the basis of new and stricter laws.

Edhi said they should be allowed to return.

International NGOs were active on the ground when Pakistan was hit by floods in 2010 and a devastating earthquake in 2005 and played an important role in relief and rehabilitation work.

The government is struggling to respond to the current floods given their unprecedented magnitude.

Edhi, who returned to the port city of Karachi after spending nine days in the flood-hit areas, described the situation as grim.

“The situation is very bad, and it seems it will worsen. People’s participation in providing relief cannot be seen as witnessed in the 2010 floods and 2005 earthquake,” he said.

He said despite efforts, 90% of those affected had not been reached. Pakistan’s government has said 33 million people - 15% of its population - have been affected.

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