YOUNG Hazim was among the hundreds of Karachiites who found themselves suspended in a nightmare. A factory worker, he took his usual route to work on Monday morning, but only made it back late on Tuesday night. “My family was gasping out of dread. They were unable to reach me because my mobile fell in the water. A man walking a few steps ahead of me vanished. He either fell unconscious or was electrocuted. How can I ever forget that?” he said. Frustrated by the plummeting quality of life in the country’s commercial hub, Hazim is now determined to leave the city and move his family to Lahore. For him, and many others, the city that held the promise of turning dreams into reality now resembles a post-apocalyptic vision of the future. In this week’s cosmic downpour, amid raging torrents that were its streets, sunken roads, fallen trees and buildings, and over 17 casualties, Karachi drowned in acute administrative apathy. On that fateful day, Sharea Faisal — perhaps the country’s most ubiquitous main artery — was without a single rescue service in sight. Hazim says he saw furious waves of water flip vehicles over, the current carrying the heavier ones till they crashed into something else. Meanwhile, social media was replete with videos of people ‘pickling’ in their submerged cars. Rickshaws, SUVs, cranes; none escaped the water’s wrath and were swallowed whole by large pools forming in construction sites along the thoroughfare. For Justin, an English expat living in Karachi, the deluge was the worst he had witnessed in his 20 years in Pakistan. After driving across town from his DHA home to help those stranded in other parts, he too was in shock. “I know that last year Dubai and Houston were flooded. The UK saw routine shutdowns during storms. But in those places, it seems that the failure is mechanical and temporary. Sadly, in Karachi it is systemic and permanent. The people’s strength is a testament to the human spirit.” The hard rain also washed away all polite barriers of class. From swanky DHA and KDA to the tight lanes of Baldia Town, Orangi, Korangi, Saddar and other parts, everything from electricity poles to motorcyclists vanished in the brown, waist-high waters. Saeed, a labourer in DHA, knew what was in store. “Another committee, more promises with no results. If this place is destroyed, then my area will never recover.” Even hospitals were not spared; with videos of emergency rooms filled with ankle-deep water doing the rounds. The fierce rainfall also unleashed a landslide at Kati Pahari — with huge boulders rolling down towards fragile settlements, reminiscent of the destruction wrought in the hilly parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Then, there were the throngs of poor women, drenched to the bone, lining the streets in knee-deep waters. These were the working women, making their way from the posh societies where they worked to homes in Qayyumabad, Korangi, Azam Basti and Akhtar Colony — each area a more sobering portrait than the last. Ambareen and her husband saw their plight, took out their jeeps, packed eight to nine women in each vehicle — including an old lady with a deep gash from an overturned rickshaw — and made multiple trips to save almost 80 to 100 hapless Karachiites. Fraught conversations along the way offered hurried sketches of their ordeal. “We leave our homes to earn. Normally, the parlour drops us to the main road. But today, the driver dashed to save his little son who fell into a manhole in this rain. I have spent hours navigating these roads. You can imagine what I am going home to,” said Christina. Sadaf, a maid, was angry: “I have walked for hours with a cut in my foot because my chappal fell apart. I have to reach Korangi dhai number. We are perpetually miserable because of these thieves.” Alongside her sat a frail Khadija. “My rickshaw toppled into a ditch and my head is injured. How much can we weather! This Sindh government has never worked for us,” was her lament. In a new era that brings its own kind of deluge, the battle between memory and money is more apparent than ever before in Karachi. The rain will stop. The rage, after a long time, will stick like a bloodsucker, or loss. Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2025