In Sindh’s Mirpurkhas, desperate villagers are using an old fencing technique to try to divert floodwaters away from their settlements after a 200-foot long breach developed in a drain that was supposed to take the monsoon load.

This fence in Jhuddo, Mirpurkhas is being made by fishermen who are hired by the irrigation department. The “manjli” is made from forty-feet-long bamboo-like poles. They create an interlocking fence with wood, nets and sandbags. This is the only way to slowly patch a waterway. Breaches can never be fixed by machinery because the land is unstable and marshy.

Flood waters have overwhelmed manmade drains in Sindh that were originally meant to carry off highly saline groundwater. They were never supposed to handle rains. But now, due to climate change they are struggling to cope with the wrath of nature. There is waterlogging and salinity because of continuous farming, and hence irrigation. With constant irrigation it was easy to ramp up farming. First the Kotri Barrage Surface Drains were constructed in Badin and Thatta during the seventies. Then drains were built in Nawabshah, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas and connected to Badin, which this later named the Left Bank Outfall Drain. The LBOD network starts in Nawabshah and pours into the sea at Sir Creek.

However, today, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Nawabshah and Badin are flooded and all this water has to reach the sea via Badin. But the drain that leads to the sea is full, even flowing beyond its original design capacity. It will take at least a month for the waters to subside.

One drain, the Sem Nullah, overflowed in Badin’s Tehsil Tando Bago (located below Mirpurkhas). The villagers had to evacuate after a 200-foot-wide portion of the drain was washed away. This is why they wanted to build the fence, to ‘plug’ the leak. They took kattas (or gunny bags) of sand and soil and placed them every five kilometers to keep the water at bay. An estimated 100,000 sandbags were laid to create a wall.

However, the farmers in Badin have to contend with the politics of Mirpurkhas. This monsoon has unleashed ugly politics. The farmers found a fisherman who came one night and pulled out some of the sandbags to undo the work they had done to build a wall. They say this was a conspiracy to protect from flooding the land of an influential personality in Mirpurkhas. They are too afraid to take this person’s name because his is extremely close to a major political party. This landlord wants his lands drained by making an opening downstream in Badin, especially at Zero point at the Left Bank Outfall Drain. The problem is that making such a channel would flood neighboring villages in Tharparkar.

The drains have overflowed throughout the districts, so now villagers in Mirpurkhas want Badin to create cuts in its drains to divert the floodwater to the desert.

Even the chief minister has noted that Jhuddo is completely flooded. “I have taken its aerial view. The city is totally submerged, and its water must be disposed of,” he said a day or so ago.

irrigation Minister Jam Khan has proposed to discharge the flood water from Juddo to Dhoro Puran. Advisor on Rehabilitation Rasool Bux Chandio said that the flood water has huge pressure, therefore, disposing it into Doro Puran may be delayed for the next two days so that its pressure subsides. They agreed with the proposal and directed the Irrigation department to plug the breach at Puran Dhoro so that further inundation of Pangrio and Malkani could be stopped.

This is not the first time such politics has surfaced. In 2011 villages in the way of a cut at the LBOD were evacuated and eventually the water drained out. The floodwater took a natural way out towards Shakoor Dhand on the Pakistan-India border. Making this cut eased the pressure on the main drain. Now, Mirpurkhas MNA Mir Munawar Talpur is putting pressure for the same thing to be done: a drain to be cut open and widened like they did in the floods of 2011, so the water drains away early.

The problem is that the voters of another parliamentarian landlord Arbab Lutfullah are coming in the way. He does not want their lands to be disturbed and says let the water eventually recede even if it takes time.

The question is why is there is a hurry to make artificial cuts to widen drains so the water drains out quickly? The Kharif season cotton is already lost and the Rabi wheat will be sown in October or November, by which time the land will be drained naturally. The truth is that this pressure is about being able to drain the land so expensive crops such as sugarcane and banana can be sown.

It doesn’t help that people along the way or even on other canal commands e.g., Rohri Canal, are using machines and pumps to add water to the drains and main canals as they try to siphon it off their fields. This is putting pressure on the tail end of irrigation systems, causing flooding as well as breaches in secondary canal systems.

The latest development is that tensions have risen in Badin where the police have arrived in a heavy contingent. Crowds from Badin and Tharparkar have gathered as they anticipate a cut will be made in the LBOD.