These are not National Geographic photos, but they are photos taken by engineer Pervez Sadiq since 1978 while Suba diving along the coast of Karachi. They are archival material now. This type of marine life is no longer actually around the port of Karachi.
Sadiq has been diving in these waters for 35 years, but he and other divers have been pushed more and more slowly. “Clifton Beach had different sands,” he told a room full of engineers who gathered on Tuesday for Earth Day at the Pakistan Institute of Engineers. “The boys used to dive into the waters of the Native Jetty and retrieve the coins.” The water was very clear.
The divers slowly moved to the west – from the port of Karachi to the French coast to the Charna island and now the pristine Astola Island Balochistan, 52 km from Pasni. Astola is uninhabited but has stunning scenery and 200-foot cliffs.
The 1.5 km by 1 km island of Charna is a popular choice but since that’s exactly what Sadiq says is endangered. “The coral is sensitive and begins to die,” he said. He has no idea what will happen with the 5,000 megawatts of power plant they plan to build and whether there will be an environmental impact assessment. “All coral reefs may be destroyed,” he warns.
Sadiq showed great photos of his diving in shipwrecks. There were several along the coast: the Regal Sun, the Abasin, the Nanda Devi, the Aquamarine, a Korean fishing vessel, the Issabani. Some have been partially rescued and others have been completely saved. “All over the world they sink ships to form artificial reefs, but we did the opposite in Karachi,” he said.
There are stunning underwater photos of him entering the Regal Sun engine room that was sunk by a missile. Divers can swim through the hole left by it.
These photos are old though so you are not likely to see puffer fish, eel, white coral, venomous lionfish, sea fan today. “It used to be like a garden there,” he said. Places like Charna suffer due to poaching, lots of litter and nets. In fact, the proposed coal pier at Gadani is an alarming development.
Sadiq showed pictures of the shipwreck, which is about 54 kilometers south of the port of Karachi. Here you can find giant grouper, which weighs more than 200 kg. You can still find large schools of fish such as barracuda and red snapper. “In fact, marine life thrives here because it is not easy to find for most fishermen,” he said.
Basically, Karachi dumps most of its effluent into the sea and this is destroying marine life. Non-biodegradable plastic is perhaps the worst culprit, but marine life is also affected by untreated sewage. Toxic chemicals and heavy metals from industry must be treated before they are discharged. (Researchers found in 2000 that children living near Baba Island had high levels of lead in their blood.) Most of our sewage plants are closed or not operating at full capacity. Treatment Plant 1 on Manghopir Road has a capacity of 51 gallons per day and TP-2 at Mahmudabad which has been encroached upon and is now just a pumping station. TP-3 for 54 MGD at Mauripur and TP-4 for 100 MGD at Ibrahim Hyderi are under development.
Karachi receives about 600 million gallons of water per day, about 30% of which is waste but we don’t treat it, so we dump 300 million gallons of raw sewage into the sea. Sadiq showed distressing images of blistered fish, dying coral, nets, trash and plastic. Once, when diving near the wreckage of the Regal Sun, they saw a silver expanse. When they got close they found that it was thousands of dead fish.
Sadiq recommends that we repair our existing sewage stations, and create marine parks around Charna Island and Astola Island with exclusion zone 4x4km and 10km x5km. “Within two years, the marine growth extending from these areas will lead to increased fishing for the local population,” he said in a slide of his presentation. He also recommends checking out the trash near the Native Jetty.
It’s not as if the authorities aren’t aware of the problem. After the presentation, engineer Roland deSouza spoke about how the armed forces went to the Senate to complain that submarines were being eroded by garbage at sea. A committee was formed. Nothing happened. In another example of poor decision-making, the city government gave land from the Mahmudabad sewage treatment plant to people they had to move when it was widening Brady Street. But the Asian Development Bank seems to have taken the cake.
When the sewage treatment plants were made, sewage did not flow into them because they were strewn on trunks that did not receive anything. It has not properly studied Karachi’s natural drainage system, which has only been properly documented by the Orangi Pilot Project. In fact, if you look at the Karachi Water and Wastewater Board’s website or presentations, you will notice that they are based on OPP maps. We don’t even know the nature of the problem. Time to wake up and smell the sewer.
