Floods of nearly similar intensity occurred during 1841, 1929 and 1994 in Pakistan jurisdiction as well as in adjoining countries but damages to human life, animal life, infrastructures, record damages to villages affecting 4 million of population and their large scale displacement, damages to vast crop lands and wheat stock were never of this magnitude. The 2010 super flood and heavy rains devastated more than 22% of Pakistan’s most developed and thickly populated area.
The flood of 2010 is unique in a way that it is almost Pakistan specific. This is amazing. This unique aspect of the flood needs investigation why is it so? It is surprising that the neighbouring countries were safe against such violent floods.
The 2010 floods are ravaging. The Indus valley – throughout history nothing of this magnitude has been witnessed in the region. A completely unannounced weather anomaly that played havoc with the monsoon jet stream creating a monsoon of gigantic proportion completely off the scale. May be some one is interfering with the earth’s ionosphere to control weather. This needs investigations if this be true.
The use of HAARP technology to control weather and cause floods!
Please refer to HAAP web site technology. The internet gives information as;” May be that HAARP weapon have been used as an experiment to create floods by interfering with ionosphere. HAARP is a technology used for star wars defense programme”.
“HAARP is a scientific endeavor aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere, with particular emphasis on being able to understand and use it to enhance communications and surveillance system for both civilian and defense purposes”.
“HAARP works like a super powerful ionosphere heater that control weather”.
“HAARP technology is used as a weapon every much as destructive as atomic weapons used on Okinawa and Nagasaki”.
“HAARP represents a potentially significant global threat. It has the potential to modify the weather, using natural forces as weapon of war, causing earthquakes, storms, floods, volcanic disturbances, hurricanes. I got this information from the inter-net. I am not sure if this is true or not. The department of Weather and the Ministry of Science should investigate this if this could be possible. We should investigate to know why floods of 2010 are almost Pakistan specific”.
Responsibility on those who did not build dams after 1974 (on completion of Tarbela)
The death of the reservoir starts the day it is built. Nevertheless, we too are very much responsible for not building flood control dams for 46 years. We are a self-destroyed nation. We failed to protect forest, and failed to maintain surface drainage system that disappeared due to negligence. Therefore, floodwater was not evacuated safely and quickly. Besides this, there was no flood management, no flood control supervision, and no properly equipped disaster management.
Flood Mismanagement, alleged breaches in bunds by influential that caused large scale devastation. Interference with the waterway of the Indus River downstream Guddu barrage creating two waterways that inundated vast areas
This year floods are highly mismanaged as numerous unauthorized breaches were made by influential to save their properties from flooding. This is not only illegal but is criminal. Floods were not foreseen. Moreover, it was completely governance failure not to manage floods and properly handle the disaster. Therefore, people have challenged man made breaches in bunds in the court. Interference with floods took to such an extent that onward Guddu barrage, the Indus waterway has been split into two waterways that caused large scale damages. The satellite images are a proof for that. (two images are attached).
Interfering with the route of flood flow
Moreover, it has been observed that the speed of floodwater flowing on the downstream to sea was very slow because floodwater was flowing over the built up area as its established route was changed by breaches in the bunds and canal banks. It took very long time to reach the sea. Some depressions are still filled with floodwater that are the source of diseases. This was because flood flow was diverted over the built up area, cropped land, villages and through low land/depressions by unauthorized breaches and by changing the course of natural and established waterways. The floodwater spread over a vast area. Besides this, another cause of low speed of floodwater flow is that all the natural surface drains were blocked by encroachments, therefore, floodwater inundated the cropped lands, habitation, roads and other infrastructures.
Causes of Floods
The basic cause of floods and devastation is that no multipurpose mega dams were built on the Indus River, Swat River and Panjkora River in 36 years to control and conserve super floods. Unfortunately, there are no dam sites on Kabul River, Jehlum River and Chinab River with in Pakistan. Floods have therefore free flow conditions to cause destruction.
The second cause of flashflood is of indiscriminate cutting of forest by timber mafia when rainwater develops in to flash floods.
The next cause of flood is devastation in sheet flow of floodwater due to the disappearance of natural surface drains and their waterways due to encroachments by the people, causing large scale inundation of land as natural waterways of drains are blocked. “The Canal and Drainage Act of 1887” requires the departments to maintain all natural surface drains in good order.
There exists no proper flood warning system so the people are taken by surprise by the super floods. There was no proper disaster management equipments.
Big Dams are vitally needed on the Indus to control super floods as similar devastating floods are likely to be repeated any time.
The most effective measure to control floods is to build multipurpose mega dams on the Indus River, Swat River and Panjkora River. Dams on these rivers must be planned keeping in view the Capacity-inflow Ratio while selecting the best dam site with long service value, so as to have long life span of the reservoir. This will have long time flood control.
Pakistan is handicapped, as there are no dam sites on Kabul River, Jehlum River and Chinab River with in the boundary of Pakistan to control super floods from these rivers. Therefore, Indus River and Panjkora Rivers are the only rivers with unique dam sites and unique reservoirs for controlling super floods in the country. There is no other way to control floods.
Unfortunately, due to shear negligence and lack of investigation, these two dams are not in the notice of WAPDA, though I submitted their preliminary feasibility reports in 1960 and 1962. The country’s leading Newspapers published my reports on these dams many times. I as Chairman IRSA in 1994 wrote to the Ministry of Water and Power to build the two vital dams that would solve many water issues.
WAPDA’s inactive role in building Dams created status quo for 36+10=46 years that caused many water and hydropower issues like damages by super floods, crippling load shedding, inter-provincial water dispute due to shortage of water
WAPDA’s inert role has created many water and hydropower issues by not building flood control multipurpose dams after the construction of Tarbela Dam in 1974 that is 36 years ago. Basha Dam will take another 10 years to complete. This means WAPDA deprived Pakistan of multipurpose dams for a period of 46 years. This has created crippling load shedding for years and years that paralyzed industries, business facilities and domestic life. It has created water shortage for irrigation, that in turn, created inter-provincial water dispute.
The existing reservoirs at Tarbela, Mangle and Chashma are silted up by about 6.6 maf. This year silting of reservoirs by super flood will cross the figure of 7.0 maf. Such huge silting of dams is terrible as no watershed management is carried out by WAPDA to prevent rapid silting of reservoirs. In short, the country suffered losses due to floods in hundreds of billions of dollars.
Water Accord provides building of dams under the IRSA Act. Water Accord paras 2, 4, 6 and para 14(e) are not implemented for the past about 20 years to build dams and create storage and avoid inter-provincial water disputes. Building of dams for Water Accord implementation will also control super floods.
Moreover, the 7.0 maf storage already lost due to silting requires mega multipurpose dams as replacement storage. Shortage of water and shortage hydropower also requires multipurpose mega dams. WAPDA completely failed to build dams removing shortage of water and hydropower to avoid crippling load shedding and the colossal damages due to uncontrolled super floods. Pakistan urgently needs to create storage capacity up to 50 maf and power generation up to 50,000 MW of power by the year 2025.
WAPDA incapable to initiate multipurpose mega dams
I discovered 12 multipurpose flood control mega dams including the unique dams at Katzarah and at Guroh Dop during 1959 to 1962 and prepared their preliminary feasibility reports and sent them to WAPDA for action. WAPDA took no notice, specially, on the two unique dams.
In1994, I suggested to create Indus Valley Authority to build series of dams on the Indus and elsewhere. The Ministry of water and Power took no notice of it. WAPDA has badly failed to investigate, conceive, plan and execute multipurpose dams.
WAPDA initiated mega drainage projects with wrong planning concepts that failed wasting billions of rupees.
WAPDA initiated drainage project, called SCARPs that failed due to wrong and ridiculous project planning concept. WAPDA again failed to execute another drainage project by the name of National Drainage Project (NDP) due to wrong concept. Rs 750 billion were then wasted by the failure of these two projects due to wrong project planning concepts of installing tube wells instead of providing surface and sub-surface tile drainage practiced all over the world. No technical enquiry was carried out why wrong planning concept was adopted in spite of objection by me. I suggested sub-surface tile drainage to physically evacuate salts out of the area. This proves, WAPDA does not know the technical definition of Drainage, Irrigation and Leaching.
Similarly, Kachi Canal, taken off from Mithan Kot was abandoned due to wrong alignment. These are WAPDA wrong deeds.
Over and above, WAPDA made Kalabagh Dam politically controversial and technically infeasible for giving tailored TOR to KBD Project Consultants. WAPDA dictated wrong hydraulic design to the Consultants that is (50 flood days restricted mid-level sluicing design) that could not evacuate silt, nor produce 3450 MW of power, therefore the Consultants did not agree to WAPDA design and suggested the right type of hydraulic design to evacuate silt (100 flood days unrestricted low-level sluicing design). But WAPDA disagreed with the Consultants design.
Besides this, WAPDA instructed the KBD Consultants to provide 2000 MW of Thermal Power Plant attached to the project to make up the deficiency of hydropower generation from the dam due to its wrong hydraulic design. This is ridiculous. Besides this, there are serious flaws that make the KBD infeasible. In spite of all this, WAPDA created status quo for 36 years initiating no other dam but waiting to execute KBD.
The Unique super flood control 35-maf Katzarah Dam on the Indus near Skardu
I discovered the unique Katzarah Dam with a storage capacity of 35 maf in 1962, and prepared its prefeasibility report and send it to WAPDA and the Ministry of Agriculture. Dr Pieter Lieftnick head of the World Bank Team confirmed the 35-maf Katzarah Dam in 1968.
Katzarah storage capacity is 6 times the storage capacity of Basha Dam or KBD. The power generation capability of Katzarah Dam is up to 15,000 MW. It is super flood control. Katzarah can irrigate about 5 million acres of barren lands and can rehabilitate millions of jobless people.
Katzarah has the unique quality of preventing silt flow in the Indus water by submerging the highly erodible soil of Skardu valley—the source of silt in the Indus water, and act as watershed management dam. Due to this quality, the lifespan of Basha Dam will increase from 80 years to 800 years. Tarbela life would also increase. Katzarah is the cheapest dam in the world per maf of storage water, per MW of power generation, per year of life span, per year of service value. It is an all purpose dam with a life span of 1000 years.
An excellent, super flood control 8.5 maf Guroh Dop Dam on Punjkora River
It is surprising WAPDA has no knowledge of a multipurpose, wonderful, flood control dam at Guroh Dop on Punjkora River about 8 miles upstream of Munda Dam site. WAPDA wrongly claims that Munda is flood control dam because its live storage is only 0.67 maf that will silt up soon. Munda is only single purpose power dam due to its low storage capacity and is not a multipurpose flood control and irrigation dam as wrongly claimed by WAPDA. WAPDA is misguiding the Government by calling Munda as flood control and irrigation dam. WAPDA has ignored the multipurpose Guroh Dop Dam due to ignorance and lack of investigation. Guroh Dop Dam site is closely located to Munda Dam on its upstream but is overlooked by WAPDA. This is a criminal act of great negligence. It makes the ability of WAPDA negatively low, unsafe, unreliable causing waste of money.
Guroh Dop Dam storage capacity is larger than the storage of Basha Dam or KBD. It will produce 500 MW of power and provide irrigation facilities to about 50,000 acres of barren land. There is possibility of diverting Chitral River water by building Mirani Dam on Chitral River and divert its flow through a tunnel discharging in to the catchment area of Guroh Dop Dam for storage at its huge reservoir at Shigo Katch. This will mitigate floods in Kabul River.
Katzarah and Guroh Dop are vital as super flood control dams. These two dams would solve all the water shortage issues of Pakistan. These two dams would meet power requirements. Had these two dams were built in time, the colossal damages caused by the 2010 floods would have been avoided and there would have been no crippling load shedding and inter-provincial water dispute due to shortage of water.
I quote the example of Gomal Zam flood control dam that saved the two districts from devastation from 2010 flood. The multipurpose flood control Gomal Zam Dam at Khajuri Katch on the notorious Gomal Zam River initiated by me in 1959 and completed by WAPDA in 50 years in 2010, protected the two districts of D.I.Khan and Tank including Kulachi tehsil from devastating floods. Gomal Zam caused terrible losses due to floods each year and is notorious for devastating floods.
Development of forest to mitigate the fury of floods
The dire need is to ban forest cutting for 40 years.
The Government should allow import of timber free of all taxes include sale tax to meet the country’s timber requirements and not depend on own forest.
At least 10% of new irrigation projects should grow forest specially deodar and shisham trees so that our main forest area remains untouched.
Farmers in the country should grow trees along the boundary of their fields.
All Government land should grow forest and should not be allotted free of cost
Forest should be grown along the 100 Km long mountains on the left and right of Tarbela Lake, as water is available and can be lifted by small submersible pumps.
Canal and Drainage Act is violated due to encroachments, thereby blocking their waterways.
According to the Canal and Drainage Act of 1887, no one is allowed under the Act to interfere with drains, encroach on it and block its flow/waterway. Most of these drains are classified drains and are supposed to be looked after as canals. The network of drains is on books. Drains are meant to evacuate safely the rain and flood water. Prior permission from the Irrigation department is necessary even if a small culvert is required for building ona drain.
Unfortunately, all natural surface drains in the country have disappeared. These drains are neglected with the result that people have blocked their waterways and encroached on their waterways. Therefore, natural surface drainage system that evacuates rain and floodwater has almost disappeared due to the negligence of the department who maintained them. Floodwater cannot be safely and quickly discharged to sea as waterways no longer exist. Big drains on GT Road lying between Islamabad and Lahore on which huge bridges were built are silted up due to negligence by blocking their waterways. As a result, the rain and floodwater has no waterway for safe passage to sea. The floodwater therefore, spreads all over the vast cropped area damaging crops, infrastructures and villages.
The rehabilitative nature of dams
Dams are multipurpose structures. Multipurpose storage dams are built to control and conserve floodwater that goes waste to sea and destroys cropland, villages, human and animal population, infrastructures and everything that it inundates. Dams generate hydropower, Dams provides irrigation facilities to vast barren areas, bringing lands under irrigated agriculture, providing food for the growing population. It will provide jobs to huge number of population to be engaged on the development of lands and bringing them under irrigated agriculture. Dams brings economic prosperity but Government has given no attension,
The basic function of 35-maf Katzarah Dam and the 8.5 maf Guroh Dop Dam is multipurpose. These two vital dams would control super floods, generate hydropower up to 15,000 MW, irrigate new barren areas of about 5 million acres and provides jobs to millions of jobless people. Many agro-based industries can be set up besides large scale agro based business. These dams would remove crippling load shedding and settle once for all, the inter-provincial Water dispute that is mainly due to water shortage. Dams control floodwater that goes waste to sea and preserve it for the use of irrigated agriculture to produce food. Katzarah Dam unique quality is to function as Watershed Management Dam by preventing silt flow to all the downstream reservoirs and prolong their lifespan.
Enclosure;
Two satellite images show new man-made waterway due to interference. A new waterway is developed by floods downstream of Guddu Barrage on the Indus. Satellite images are attached for study.
