Cut made at Badani-Bhan Road
Pakistan Army and civilian departments have saved Dadu Grid Station from flood water by creating an embankment around it.
After hard work of 36 hours, Pakistan Army Engineers Corps constructed a 2.4 kilometre embankment around the grid station due to which it remained safe and no power disruption occurred in Dadu.
People of the area have expressed gratitude to Pakistan Army for this timely action.
Earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday while taking a notice of the possible threat to a 500KV grid station in Dadu from the flood situation, had directed for utilization of all resources to protect the power grid. Upon PM’s directive, three excavators had been sent from Moro city.
Floods from record monsoon rains and glacial melt in the mountainous north have affected 33 million people and killed almost 1,400, washing away homes, roads, railways, livestock and crops, in damage estimated at $30 billion.
The electricity station in the district of Dadu in the southern province of Sindh, one of the country’s worst affected areas, supplies power to six provincial districts.
Troops were busy strengthening a dike built in front of the station, a visit to the site showed on Sunday.
“All preventive measures have been taken already to save the grid in case any flooding happens,” Syed Murtaza Ali Shah, a top district official, told media Monday.
On Monday, a dust storm in nearby Sehwan town uprooted hundreds of tents pitched at roadsides by people made homeless by the floods, as a fresh spell of rains expected in the middle of the month begins to set in, officials said.
“If rains come where would we go – we are sitting under open sky, we don’t know what to eat, what to cook,” Muhammad Hasan, one of those impacted by the storm, told Reuters.
“All the tents got uprooted by strong winds, we do not know where to go. We are desperate.”
Meanwhile, a cut was made to Badani-Bhan road in Dadu’s Pir Shahnawaz tehsil on Monday as floodwaters from Manchhar Lake continued to wreak havoc in the district, with officials warning that more villages were facing a threat of inundation.
The assistant commissioner of Dadu told media that the cut was made to divert the waters into River Indus. “The cut will give way to the floodwaters to flow directly into the Indus Link Canal,” he said.
However, residents say that water was now inching toward more than 30 villages, forcing residents to move to safer locations. They also complained that the agricultural land spread over acres was flooded.
Separately, another village Mian Yaar Muhammad Kalhoro was submerged in floodwater. One of the major hospitals and schools in the village had been inundated, forcing inhabitants to relocate to far-off places.
Dadu Assistant Commissioner Shahnawaz Mirani, who is monitoring the situation, said that floodwater was now flowing towards Khudabad and Muradabad areas.
