Pakistan to breach main highway to protect town of Dadu from floods

Authorities in southern Pakistan plan to breach the country’s Indus Highway, a key transport link, to allow water to flow and prevent flooding in the town of Dadu, officials said on Sunday.

Floods from a record monsoon and glacial melt in the north of Pakistan have hit 33 million people and killed at least 1,391, washing away homes, roads, railways, livestock and crops.

Pakistan estimates the cost of the damage at $30 billion, and both the government and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres have blamed the flooding, extreme weather and resulting devastation on climate change.

There are at least three points in Dadu district where the Indus Highway is submerged, with traffic suspended for weeks, while Pakistan’s other highway connecting the north and south has also been badly hit by the flood waters.

“All the other floods hit parts of the country are going in(to) rehabilitation phase, but we are still on our toes until and unless these flood waters, hill torrents ... finally pass,” Syed Murtaza Ali Shah, District Commissioner of Dadu district said on Sunday, adding this might mean breaching the highway.

Guterres told reporters on Saturday that the international community needed to do more to help countries hit hardest by the effects of climate change, starting with Pakistan.