Rescue teams in Pakistan’s biggest city evacuated a minimum of 318 individuals overnight as floodwaters flooded through the low-lying areas of Karachi, reported Mayor Murtaza Wahab on Wednesday.
“You are all heroes,” Wahab said to rescue workers, commending teams that stay on the ground as monsoon rains keep rising rivers and dams in southern Sindh province.
Edhi Maritime Services, a major charity organization in Pakistan, announced that its boats rescued 12 individuals — among them nine children — from Shehbaz Goth, located on the city’s periphery.
State-operated Rescue 1122 indicated that numerous individuals were trapped near Sohrab Goth, a bustling transport center in central Karachi, where teams were sent with boats and watercraft.
Floodwaters from Thado Dam in the Malir district swept a vehicle away late Tuesday, but local officials safely rescued all four passengers, according to Sindh government spokesperson Abdul Rasheed Channa.
Officials also breached a part of the median barrier on the M-9 Motorway, the main road connecting Karachi to the rest of the nation, to redirect increasing waters. “The highway is clear and traffic has returned,” Channa stated.
Karachi, with a population exceeding 20 million, has experienced increasingly severe urban flooding lately as climate change leads to more intense monsoon rainfall in Pakistan, one of the globe’s most climate-vulnerable nations.
According to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, over 900 people have died since the onset of the monsoon season in late June due to heavy rains and flooding. Over a thousand additional individuals suffered injuries during this time.
