Once Bountiful, Now Toxic, Lake Manchar In Pakistan Floods Out Remaining Residents After Record Rain
Maula Bakhsh Mala’s village was submerged by Lake Manchar for the third time last week. “What bad luck we have,” said the 68-year-old fisher. “When there is no water in the lake, we are starving. When there is plenty of water, we are drowning.” Late last month, after weeks of heavy rain and flooding, Pakistan declared a state of emergency. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described the rain as a “monsoon on steroids”. Earlier this month, satellite images showed one-third of the country has experienced severe flooding.
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And for the people living around Lake Manchar, the largest freshwater lake in Pakistan, the monsoon has compounded an environmental catastrophe that has been breaking up their community for a decade. After years of living with a lake that has been slowly disappearing while also appearing to silt up with pollution, the lake flooded and then burst its banks last week, submerging the surrounding villages and leaving local residents stranded.
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For years, there has been growing concern about the lake. Research into the pollution by Dr Asghar Ali Mahesar of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology showed industrial and municipal wastewater from upper Sindh and Balochistan, as well as agricultural wastewater, has been flowing into the lake, creating dangers for local fishers and marine life. Villagers were no longer able to use the lake for drinking water.
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Malli, 55, who lives on a boathouse, is having to leave with her family due to the lake’s toxic water. “We have been living in hard times, we are compelled to leave our ancestral boathouses for livelihood,” she said. More than 200,000 people used to live on the lake, according to Pakistan’s 1988 census, but that number has since dwindled to about 3,000. Residents initially welcomed the rain, hoping it might revive the lake, although they were aware that in the long term, only a government restoration project would bring about an improvement.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/13/pakistan-floods-lake-manchar-environmental-catastrophe
