Karachi woke up on Thursday to broken streets, fallen trees, and a death toll that had climbed to at least 20. A powerful storm the night before had torn through the city with winds of up to 97 kilometres per hour, ripping rooftops, collapsing walls, and cutting power to vast neighbourhoods still bright with Eid lights. More than 60 people were injured, emergency teams were stretched thin across all districts, and the Pakistan Meteorological Department warned that the worst was not yet over.
A Storm That No One Could Ignore
The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) had issued advance warnings about a westerly weather system pushing into Sindh. But even those who had seen Karachi’s notorious monsoon seasons were unprepared for what arrived. Wind speeds on Shahrah-e-Faisal reached 90 kilometres per hour, while Mauripur clocked gusts at 97 kilometres per hour. Korangi bore the heaviest rainfall, recording 55.6 millimetres in a single night. Trees that had lined Karachi’s streets for decades were uprooted in minutes. Signboards crashed onto roads. Solar panels were stripped from rooftops. Cars were buried under fallen walls.
Aga Khan Road, usually one of the city’s more orderly arteries, became an obstacle course of broken branches and damaged vehicles. Club Road in front of Karachi Gymkhana was sealed to traffic entirely. Mayor Murtaza Wahab, posting updates on X through the night, urged citizens to stay indoors. “Several trees had fallen due to heavy gusts,” he said, adding that emergency response teams had been placed on high alert across all districts.
The Worst Tragedy: Mawachh Goth
The deadliest single incident of that terrible night unfolded in Baldia Town’s Mawachh Goth neighbourhood. Thirteen people, many of them sheltering inside a dilapidated building to escape the rain, were killed when the structure’s walls gave way under the force of the storm. The Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah took immediate notice. Rescue workers spent hours sifting through debris under the rain, searching for anyone still alive beneath the rubble.
Elsewhere, a boundary wall collapsed in Landhi’s Majeed Colony, killing two people including a woman. A man was struck by lightning near Yaru Goth in Malir and did not survive. In Korangi’s Sector 3½, a woman lost her life when the roof of her home caved in. A man in Korangi No. 5 was killed by a falling tree. The list of the dead grew through the night, name by name, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.
A City in Darkness and Disorder
Power outages spread rapidly across the city. Buffer Zone had been without electricity since 9pm. North Karachi, North Nazimabad, Federal B Area, Orangi Town, and dozens of other localities sat in darkness for hours. Roads in low-lying areas turned into rivers. Shopping centres that had been packed with last-minute Eid shoppers were suddenly marooned, women and children huddled inside stores, unable to return home through the flooded streets.
Sindh Local Government Minister Nasser Hussain Shah announced that all Eid holidays for staff in relevant departments had been cancelled. A central control room was set up at the KMC building to coordinate relief operations. Yet for many residents, the response felt too slow. In working-class neighbourhoods where poorly built homes are the norm, the structural damage was severe, and many were left to manage on their own.
The Morning After: A City Picking Up the Pieces
Thursday morning brought no relief in the sky. Intermittent showers continued across North Karachi, North Nazimabad and Federal B Area. The PMD warned that the western weather system had not yet passed, and that more thunderstorms with strong winds and isolated hail were expected across Karachi Division and other parts of Sindh, including Hyderabad, Thatta, and Badin.
Police surgeon Dr Summaiya Tariq confirmed that over two dozen people had been treated at hospitals across the city for rain-related injuries. Edhi Foundation volunteers, who were among the first to respond, worked through the night to transport the dead and injured. In Korangi, an unidentified man estimated to be around 30 years old was found trapped under a fallen tree near Tasleem Ground. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
A Question of Infrastructure and Accountability
Karachi has endured floods before. It has lived through collapsed buildings, uprooted trees, and waterlogged streets more times than its residents can count. What the storm of March 18 revealed, once again, is not just the force of nature, but the fragility of a city that has long been neglected. The buildings that killed people were not brought down by an extraordinary act of God; they were poorly constructed structures that should never have been allowed to stand.
Mayor Wahab noted that while much of the city remained “functional,” it was the low-lying and underdeveloped areas that bore the worst of the damage. This is a familiar story. It is the poor who live in the buildings without reinforced walls. It is the poor whose streets flood because drains are never properly cleared. And it is the poor who die when the sky finally falls.
As rescue teams continued their work and the PMD kept its warnings active, Karachi prepared itself for more rain. The city would endure, as it always has. But the names of those who did not survive the night of March 18 deserve more than endurance. They deserve answers.
