Rain continued to devastate parts of Sindh as 24 more people lost their lives in various incidents on Friday. Online while giving the death toll said the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) was overflowing and floodwater had inundated more villages, damaging standing crops on hundreds of acres of land.
APP reported that Sanghar district had been declared calamity-hit while further breaches in canals and nullahs at several points submerged more areas across Sindh. Vast swaths of agri lands were deluged by floodwater in Noushehro Feroz with residents on foot in search for safer locations. Many locals were making efforts to erect temporary embankments to stem the flood tide.Thatta district is buckling under worse conditions with flooding of saline nullahs submerging vast areas in two union councils in Jati tehsil and eight UCs in Mirpur Buthoro. Meanwhile, gastro and skin diseases are on the rise in the flood-hit areas.
The administration has failed in draining out the stagnant knee-deep rainwater from roads, streets and residential neighbourhoods of Mirpurkhas, prompting demonstration in the city. On the other hand, Reuters reported that Pakistan may have lost up to two million cotton bales, or about 13 percent of its estimated crop, due to heavy monsoon rains during harvesting in Sindh. Officials now estimate between 13 and 13.5 million bales in the financial year 2011/12 against an expected bumper harvest of 15 million bales for the world’s fourth largest cotton producer. “According to initial reports the damage to cotton crops in Sindh is pretty massive … up to two million bales have been destroyed,” Agha Jan Akhtar, secretary of the Sindh Agriculture Department, told Reuters.
