KARACHI: After several holidays due to torrential rain and floods, schools will remain open on Saturdays in Sindh.
The Sindh Education Department had announced that all public and private educational institutions in Karachi would remain closed due to the situation caused by heavy rains in the city. The department had declared holidays in schools and colleges.
Following the holidays, All Private Schools Management Association Sindh (APSMA) Chairman Syed Tariq Shah announced that schools will remain open on Saturday. “Saturdays will be designated as teaching days,” he said, to mention the need to recover learning time lost to frequent weather-related holidays.
He said that schools across Karachi have reopened today following an extended closure caused by stormy rains and urban flooding.
Earlier, CM Murad Ali Shah said that Sindh government’s top priority is to save lives.
Addressing media outside Mazar-i-Quaid in Karachi, The chief minister expressed his sympathies for the families of those who lost their lives in the recent floods.
“The deluge that started from India, and caused destruction there, then has reached Sindh after covering the entire Pakistan … we will [face it] with the help of our people,” he said.
Calling for unity, the chief minister noted that PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had called for immediate relief by imposing an agricultural emergency.
CM Murad said that “Yesterday, the federal cabinet imposed a climate and agricultural emergency. I am waiting … and we also have some recommendations that we will present”.
“I think the solution to this lies not just with the centre or with the provinces alone. We will need a collective solution to the threat posed by climate change,” he emphasised.
The chief minister highlighted the heightening and strengthening of bunds after the previous floods of 2014.
“Sukkur Barrage is an engineering marvel […] the world’s engineers designed that barrage in 1932 but three years later, they had to close 10 gates,” he noted, adding that the government will carry out studies of the structure to increase its capacity.
On the other hand, flooding caused severe damage in seven villages of Pakpattan, forcing thousands of people to evacuate.
Rescue teams continued boat operations for a second day, moving around 3,500 people and 250 animals to safer areas. Floodwater also destroyed rice and maize crops spread across hundreds of acres.
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