PAKISTAN
Big, bad rain
Rafia Zakaria
Rafia Zakaria
Published August 23, 2025
DAWN
IT happened again. The heavens opened, the clouds burst upon the house of cards that is Karachi’s crumbling infrastructure, and it all fell apart. For those unlucky enough to have been far from home on Aug 19, it was a nightmare. The lack of adequate warning meant this applied to millions. The speed of the extreme rain and the absence of any measures to deal with it paralysed roads, highways and bridges within an hour of its onset. Since the rain did not relent (according to some estimates, the total recorded was around 120mm on the initial day) the situation only got worse — and then deadly.
Commuters who got a head start in their journey home, faced terrifying currents of water. Many waiting in stalled cars saw the water rising around them. The rain continued and traffic remained jammed as evening turned into night. Many made anxious calls to family and friends to try to figure out what to do. The situation was particularly difficult for women commuting alone, who did not feel comfortable abandoning their cars and trying to reach home safely on foot. Yet as the torrents enveloped them, this is what they were forced to do. Those stuck on Sharea Faisal waded through waist-deep water to get to service roads and buildings on the side.
This path was made much more treacherous by the fact that when it starts to pour in Karachi, many people uncover manholes outside their homes and offices to ‘facilitate’ drainage. Of course, the problem is that these uncovered manholes represent the greatest danger during extreme rainfall, as people wading through the water to safety can fall into them and not be able to extricate themselves. Naturally, this weighs on those trying to decide whether to abandon their cars and attempt to reach higher ground.
Without doubt, Karachi residents rose to the occasion.
People who stayed in their offices faced problems too. Most thought they would only have to wait a few hours before the rain stopped and could then make their way home. However, the rain continued, creating a separate wave of panic later in the evening when people realised they would likely be stuck for many more hours, without food or water. By this time, much of the city was without electricity, which meant that many stranded people could not charge their phones to stay in touch with family members. The worst situation befell parents who had to pick up children from after-school activities because they had no idea how they would reach them.
Without doubt, Karachiites rose to the occasion in coming to the aid of those who were stranded. Within hours, many aid connections were made through WhatsApp or other social media platforms. This, however, is not what a city of 16 million should have to resort to when it comes to extreme precipitation — episodes of which, unsurprisingly, are only expected to increase as Pakistan bears the consequences of climate change. These effects are felt acutely in a dense urban environment like Karachi because the natural drainage and catchment systems have been eliminated by man-made structures. In such environments, drainage systems are built to make up for the absence of natural ones. But this is not the case in this megalopolis.
The ethnopolitical make-up of the province and its relations with the federal government for the past many decades point to the fact that Karachi cannot hope for improvement or a sudden moment of conscience that would make administrators and leaders actually create systems to prevent such paralysing events. However, if the city cannot have a rain management system, perhaps it could at least have a rain forecasting system that would give enough notice to the people to prepare.
Incidentally, rese-arch for this already exists as in the case of the study carried out at Harvard. In Rainfall-driven machine learning models for accurate flood inundation mapping in Karachi, Umair Rasool and his co-authors test different machine learning models to see how AI can better predict pluvial flooding (flooding that cannot be absorbed by drainage systems). The study reveals how the frequency and intensity of rainfall events and careful consideration of influencing factors can help build more accurate predictive models. These could, among other things, predict flood inundation points in the city.
If politicians want to shift blame and indulge in the same shenanigans they always do, perhaps the demand before them can change — to at least invest in research like this so that people receive some semblance of a warning before the big, bad rains lash and devastate the city.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2025
IT happened again. The heavens opened, the clouds burst upon the house of cards that is Karachi’s crumbling infrastructure, and it all fell apart. For those unlucky enough to have been far from home on Aug 19, it was a nightmare. The lack of adequate warning meant this applied to millions. The speed of the extreme rain and the absence of any measures to deal with it paralysed roads, highways and bridges within an hour of its onset. Since the rain did not relent (according to some estimates, the total recorded was around 120mm on the initial day) the situation only got worse — and then deadly.
Commuters who got a head start in their journey home, faced terrifying currents of water. Many waiting in stalled cars saw the water rising around them. The rain continued and traffic remained jammed as evening turned into night. Many made anxious calls to family and friends to try to figure out what to do. The situation was particularly difficult for women commuting alone, who did not feel comfortable abandoning their cars and trying to reach home safely on foot. Yet as the torrents enveloped them, this is what they were forced to do. Those stuck on Sharea Faisal waded through waist-deep water to get to service roads and buildings on the side.
This path was made much more treacherous by the fact that when it starts to pour in Karachi, many people uncover manholes outside their homes and offices to ‘facilitate’ drainage. Of course, the problem is that these uncovered manholes represent the greatest danger during extreme rainfall, as people wading through the water to safety can fall into them and not be able to extricate themselves. Naturally, this weighs on those trying to decide whether to abandon their cars and attempt to reach higher ground.
Without doubt, Karachi residents rose to the occasion.
People who stayed in their offices faced problems too. Most thought they would only have to wait a few hours before the rain stopped and could then make their way home. However, the rain continued, creating a separate wave of panic later in the evening when people realised they would likely be stuck for many more hours, without food or water. By this time, much of the city was without electricity, which meant that many stranded people could not charge their phones to stay in touch with family members. The worst situation befell parents who had to pick up children from after-school activities because they had no idea how they would reach them.
Without doubt, Karachiites rose to the occasion in coming to the aid of those who were stranded. Within hours, many aid connections were made through WhatsApp or other social media platforms. This, however, is not what a city of 16 million should have to resort to when it comes to extreme precipitation — episodes of which, unsurprisingly, are only expected to increase as Pakistan bears the consequences of climate change. These effects are felt acutely in a dense urban environment like Karachi because the natural drainage and catchment systems have been eliminated by man-made structures. In such environments, drainage systems are built to make up for the absence of natural ones. But this is not the case in this megalopolis.
The ethnopolitical make-up of the province and its relations with the federal government for the past many decades point to the fact that Karachi cannot hope for improvement or a sudden moment of conscience that would make administrators and leaders actually create systems to prevent such paralysing events. However, if the city cannot have a rain management system, perhaps it could at least have a rain forecasting system that would give enough notice to the people to prepare.
Incidentally, rese-arch for this already exists as in the case of the study carried out at Harvard. In Rainfall-driven machine learning models for accurate flood inundation mapping in Karachi, Umair Rasool and his co-authors test different machine learning models to see how AI can better predict pluvial flooding (flooding that cannot be absorbed by drainage systems). The study reveals how the frequency and intensity of rainfall events and careful consideration of influencing factors can help build more accurate predictive models. These could, among other things, predict flood inundation points in the city.
If politicians want to shift blame and indulge in the same shenanigans they always do, perhaps the demand before them can change — to at least invest in research like this so that people receive some semblance of a warning before the big, bad rains lash and devastate the city.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2025
This story is about us, the citizens of Karachi, called ‘resilient’ every year, but fast running out of resilience ... and hope.
Published August 23, 2025
DAWN
It was almost deja vu. We’d walked through this foul water before. Felt our way through barely recognisable streets from memory. When you live in a city like Karachi, it almost begins to feel normal. And yet, nothing can get you used to the fact that you — the privileged you, who has made a living out of writing on the city’s myriad governance issues — will be among the thousands stranded in water-clogged streets as you experience it in real time. Time and again.
In 2020, when Karachi witnessed one of its worst floods in decades — it can’t definitively be the worst because we like beating our own records — my dad and I walked back home, to Garden West, from I.I. Chundrigar Road in waist-high floodwaters.
At 55, my father was surprisingly surefooted with the stride of a mountain goat. He dragged me through the deluge, all the while making sure to keep an eye open for potholes, ragged stones and bare electric wires. He even cracked a joke here and there to ensure that the neurotransmitters in my brain remained balanced.
Five years on, as we relived the ordeal, wading through a mix of sewerage and rain water on the night of August 19, it suddenly dawned on me how drastically things had changed. The roles had reversed, and I hadn’t even realised it until we were in the thick of the storm.
Over 150mm of rain and Karachi had once again sunk. Why that happens every time and what the authorities are doing about it are questions all of us Karachiites ask every monsoon season. By now, we have come up with newer and better questions: Why does the mayor keep pretending all is well even as thousands of Karachi’s citizens remain stranded? Why can’t we plan better? Is it getting worse with each passing year? Is this the new normal?
Unfortunately, nothing has changed about the responses. It is a tale told and heard a gazillion times: “Jab zyada barish ati hay to zyada pani ata hay.”
A cloudy sky captured from the roof of my house.
I have been told I don’t learn from my mistakes (I get that from my dad), and so, living up to the reputation, I was at my workplace at 10am sharp on Tuesday. It had already begun raining before I logged onto my computer. The weather apps flashed red with warnings of rain that was going to last the entire day. But I was unfazed.
When are these predictions ever accurate? So I got to work, resolute and focused to file the story that was sitting in my drafts for days. At around 1pm, my boss came in and cautioned of an impending rainstorm. “Leave now,” he warned.
I brushed him off initially, but then it did start raining quite heavily. By 3pm, the sky was hidden behind thick and dark clouds, intimidating us. I immediately called my dad. “What’s the plan?” I asked him. He told me to stay put, his soothing voice devoid of any worry or anxiety.
And that’s exactly what I did. Even when nerves got the best of my colleagues, I remained calm. “Abba hain naa,” I thought to myself. You see, my father and I are partners in crime and despair. And in my head, it was supposed to stay the same forever; he would handle everything, he was invincible, and age, well, that was just a number.
Heavy, very heavy, downpour.
Little did I know that this city was going to prove me painfully wrong. It gets to the strongest of us.
By 6pm, panic had started to settle into our building. There was a mess outside — a massive traffic jam, inundated roads and a downpour that just wouldn’t stop. And then, to make matters worse, the power went out. As the clock struck 8pm, the water levels on the main arteries had risen significantly, and it was pitch black.
I got a call. Father was downstairs. I was told to leave my bag upstairs and come with essentials — mobile phone and spectacles — tightly packed in a plastic bag. I did as told, and when I got to the main gate of our building, my lanky dad stood in drenched clothes and jeans folded up to his knees. He had already done some walking.
He was smiling his usual toothy smile, but the stress lines were evident on his face. There was no way to get home but to walk. He gripped my hand and we began the long journey ahead of us.
As we waded through the waters in front of Shaheen Complex, mixed with a bit of everything from rainwater to raw effluent, a feeling of disgust crept through me. Immediately, my father’s hand tightened around mine, this time not to give support but to take it as his foot got entangled in a floating plastic bag.
The main I.I. Chundrigar Road is inundated.
At 60, he was recently diagnosed with Carpal tunnel syndrome — a condition caused when the median nerve, in the carpal tunnel of the wrist, becomes compressed.
He kept losing his footing, almost falling twice if I hadn’t caught him in time. When he almost stepped on a bare electric wire, I didn’t hold back in scolding him, and henceforth made sure to make a small announcement every time I saw one.
These announcements continued even when a slope or steps came along the way. “Acha acha, baap ko mat sikhao,” he would say, laughing it off while also listening intently. At some instances, especially when we moved from a footpath to the main road, I took the first step to make sure that the ground beneath was solid, feeling with my feet where the eyes couldn’t see through the murky water.
In a few spots, I fumbled and almost fell headfirst into the water, but, miraculously, I ended up restoring my balance and that of my father. Later at night, I saw how these instances had left red scars on my feet.
In other places, when I faltered, strangers, who were probably as vulnerable as we were in that moment, signalled an open manhole, a leaking drain or a rocky crater. Even when nothing was said, their presence alone was comforting.
Two men push a rickshaw through flooded streets.
We were all one, abandoned in our struggle against a force we had no control over. A man dragging his wife on a motorcycle through the inundated streets. A group of chador-clad women walking back home, cursing at every passing car that splashed water on them. A father and daughter, walking almost two hours to get home, otherwise a 20-minute drive.
When we finally got to the road opposite the Pearl Continental Hotel, the water on the roads receded from our waists down to our toes. At first, we tried to stop a rickshaw, but every one of them was occupied. Some stopped in a frenzy, not to give us a ride, but to ask for directions.
So we continued our trek. There were moments when I would walk fast, too fast for dad to keep pace. I could see him heaving, out of breath, but not saying anything, and so I would slow down, the same way he did five years ago.
Wading through knee-deep waters on the Ziauddin Ahmed Road.
After walking for 10 more minutes, we stopped outside a shut-down bank along the route to take shelter under a leaky makeshift shed. By then, the rain was accompanied by gusts of strong wind, and so a break was necessary. We stood there, both looking intently at the road and the cars passing by, trying to gauge the velocity of the rain droplets.
Suddenly, a man, attired in the uniform of a security guard, walked up to us. “Sir, ma’am, please take our seats,” he offered in the sweetest tone. We refused politely, but he was so insistent that my father had to give in. A few minutes later, he brought two glasses of water. It was later that I realised how this small act of kindness helped dad cover a long distance on foot.
To think of it, he understood it before I did — I was the one in charge now; looking out for potholes, stones, and bare electric wires, cracking a joke now and then, and criticising the administration that was nowhere to be seen.
When we finally reached the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine — which is just a few kilometres from my current residence — we stopped. I was tired and worn out. So was he, but he tried his best not to show it. We decided to get a ride home. Fortunately, we were lucky to find one.
Had my father been in the lead, he would have made sure that both of us walked all the way, that he didn’t show his fatigue to me, and that he reclaimed his title of being the saviour for the umpteenth time. I may be his daughter, but I am not him, no matter how much we resemble, both physically and in personality.
“Baap to baap hi hota hai,” he joked later that night at the dinner table when I shared details of the journey with my family. And while everyone giggled, I couldn’t help but feel the invisible weight of living in a city where everything changes but nothing changes.
And this isn’t just about me or my dad. It is about the sister who called me a dozen times, worried sick, because she couldn’t reach my 25-year-old colleague. It is about the stranded Foodpanda rider I saw near Teen Talwar. It is about my friend whose newly bought car, a white Alto, was submerged in water on Sharea Faisal. It is also about our maid who didn’t have electricity for nearly two days.
It is about us, the citizens of Karachi, called ‘resilient’ every year, but fast running out of resilience … and hope.
All photos by Dawn staffers
After walking for 10 more minutes, we stopped outside a shut-down bank along the route to take shelter under a leaky makeshift shed. By then, the rain was accompanied by gusts of strong wind, and so a break was necessary. We stood there, both looking intently at the road and the cars passing by, trying to gauge the velocity of the rain droplets.
Suddenly, a man, attired in the uniform of a security guard, walked up to us. “Sir, ma’am, please take our seats,” he offered in the sweetest tone. We refused politely, but he was so insistent that my father had to give in. A few minutes later, he brought two glasses of water. It was later that I realised how this small act of kindness helped dad cover a long distance on foot.
To think of it, he understood it before I did — I was the one in charge now; looking out for potholes, stones, and bare electric wires, cracking a joke now and then, and criticising the administration that was nowhere to be seen.
When we finally reached the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine — which is just a few kilometres from my current residence — we stopped. I was tired and worn out. So was he, but he tried his best not to show it. We decided to get a ride home. Fortunately, we were lucky to find one.
Had my father been in the lead, he would have made sure that both of us walked all the way, that he didn’t show his fatigue to me, and that he reclaimed his title of being the saviour for the umpteenth time. I may be his daughter, but I am not him, no matter how much we resemble, both physically and in personality.
“Baap to baap hi hota hai,” he joked later that night at the dinner table when I shared details of the journey with my family. And while everyone giggled, I couldn’t help but feel the invisible weight of living in a city where everything changes but nothing changes.
And this isn’t just about me or my dad. It is about the sister who called me a dozen times, worried sick, because she couldn’t reach my 25-year-old colleague. It is about the stranded Foodpanda rider I saw near Teen Talwar. It is about my friend whose newly bought car, a white Alto, was submerged in water on Sharea Faisal. It is also about our maid who didn’t have electricity for nearly two days.
It is about us, the citizens of Karachi, called ‘resilient’ every year, but fast running out of resilience … and hope.
All photos by Dawn staffers
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