Dudar overtaken by drought despite torrential rains

The Baloch Hal News

LASBEALA: Dudar Valley of Kanraj in Lasbela is currently facing a severe drought situation despite heavy torrential rains all the surrounding human settlements in the area.

The home of lead and zinc reserves did not receive rains and presently facing a drought situation compelling the people to leave the area or fetch water from a distance.

Interestingly, the entire region or surrounding settlements of Bela, Uthal, Vindar, Sonmiani, Karachi, Dadu, Thano Bola Khan and even Hyderabad received very heavy downpour inundating all the seasonal rivers and agricultural fields when cyclone ‘phet’ lashed Lasbela Coast a week ago.

The people in Dudar are bringing water from a distance of 20 miles for domestic consumption. The Chinese metal mining company MRDL is also buying water through tankers from a distance of 20 miles, an official told this scribe.

The only metal mining plant for Lead and Zinc is located in Dudar in Lasbela District and the Chinese are forced to buy water tankers to operate only two shifts a day to meet the production target.

The Chinese have built a small dam on a nearby seasonal river augmenting water resources for the Lead and Zinc Plant. They dam is completely dry as there was no rains in the catchment areas of the seasonal river rendering the water reservoir for the plant useless at least for the time being.

Hopefully, the monsoon rains in near future will bring a change and the entire area will receive rains in July, local residents and plant engineers hoped.