Rain, havoc, repeat July 13, 2021 Every year now, monsoon rains ravage Karachi, with residents left at nature’s mercy and scrambling to ensure supply of basic necessities, while the provincial and federal governments engage in political point-scoring and the usual blame game. As Monday’s downpour presented a much-needed respite from the summer heat, for many the cheer dissipated as power outages notoriously accompanied the first drops of rain. While power disruption during rains should be the exception, in Karachi it has become the rule. Every year we see the same scenes with people going through painful experiences at the hands of power supply companies, be it K-Electric in Karachi or other companies in various cities across Pakistan. It does not take rain to be disastrous, it just needs the first drop to make the power supply disappear. The Met Dept has predicted rainfall in various areas from Kashmir to Karachi in the next few days, with warnings of flash floods and landslides in places prone to the natural disasters. While overnight rain in several areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and interior Sindh resulted in flash floods and power breakdowns, for Karachi’s residents, Monday’s surprise shower brought back haunting memories of last year’s catastrophe, when record-breaking monsoon rains, spread across several spells in July and August, wreaked havoc on the city’s infrastructure, including several days of a power breakdown and flooding of several major and minor arteries along with entire neighbourhoods, leading the provincial government to declare a ‘rain emergency’. Tragically, around 100 people were killed in rain-related incidents – many by electrocution. The devastation had led the PM to call in the army-led FWO and NDMA to help clean the city’s storm-water drains. The then-NDMA chief had emphasised understanding the city’s complex problems and creating a broad consensus among all the city’s stakeholders for a permanent solution. Unfortunately, it appears we are back on square one, despite the federal government announcing an over-Rs1 trillion uplift package for the mega city last year, which included cleaning of storm-water drains, as well as forming the ‘Karachi Coordination Committee’ to monitor the city’s overhaul.