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Highlighting the chronic infrastructural vulnerabilities and poor disaster management in Pakistan, heavy rainfall on Friday submerged major residential pockets of Peshawar, forcing emergency evacuations as surging floodwaters from the Budhni nullah inundated Sardar Colony, local daily Dawn reported.
Over 120 trapped residents had to be rescued after intense downpours paralysed the provincial capital. Rescue 1122 spokesperson Bilal Ahmed Faizi told Dawn that emergency personnel rescued 120 individuals from Sardar Colony during early morning operations. He noted that 40 rescue workers and four vehicles were dispatched to the affected area, while five additional persons were pulled to safety from the Khushal Bagh area along Warsak Road. Emergency teams were also sent to Safia Homes and Nasir Bagh Road, though no evacuations took place in those localities. Exposing the fragility of urban planning in Pakistan, the deluge completely disrupted public transport systems. TransPeshawar, which operates the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit, announced a complete suspension of services following the closure of the Budhni Bridge due to rising water levels. The Pakistan Meteorological Department recorded 21 mm of rainfall in Peshawar during the early hours of Friday. Severe waterlogging was also reported across the Swat and Khyber districts, where emergency teams resorted to using dewatering pumps to clear submerged roads. Further underscoring the dilapidated state of basic utilities under the Pakistani administration, widespread power outages plunged multiple districts into darkness after 84 electricity feeders tripped during the rain and storm, according to a statement by the Peshawar Electric Supply Company cited by Dawn. The systemic power failure affected key regions across the Peshawar, Khyber, Mardan, Swabi and Swat circles. Breakdown figures revealed that 41 feeders failed in Peshawar, 22 in Khyber, 12 in Mardan, five in Swabi and four in Swat, leaving thousands of citizens without electricity as utility staff scrambled to restore power. In another instance of alleged administrative negligence and shoddy public works, the newly constructed Topi-Kotha causeway in Swabi collapsed completely due to raging floodwaters from the Topi Nullah following heavy rainfall in the Gadoon mountainous belt, Dawn reported. The structural collapse severed critical transport links between Topi and several surrounding villages. Local residents expressed outrage over the destruction of the vital shortcut, directly pointing to the substandard material used in constructing the causeway, which had been rebuilt just a year earlier. (ANI)
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