In late November 2024, unusually heavy rains overwhelmed Sukkur and Rohri, and nearly 70% of Sukkur — Sindh’s third largest city — remained submerged under rainwater for days because the drainage system simply collapsed. The disaster showed how vulnerable the cities of upper Sindh are not only to river floods but to rain that has nowhere to go.
Widespread Flooding in Sukkur and Rohri
Heavy rains led to flooding across Old Sukkur, New Pind, Shalimar, Barrage Road, Rohri, Salah Pat, Khandra, Dadonko, Patni, Pano Aqil, and even the village fields beyond the city edge. Both urban and rural areas were affected at the same time. In central Sukkur, Station Road, the area around the historic Ghanta Ghar clock tower, Hussain Road and other main business districts stood underwater, halting trade and cutting neighbourhoods off from one another. In Rohri, low-lying mohallas filled faster than pumps could clear them, and families moved children, livestock and whatever household goods they could carry to higher ground.
Severe Impact Across Sindh
The Sukkur floods were part of a province-wide disaster. Seventeen districts in Sindh were severely affected, with 141 deaths recorded — including 66 children — and around 500 people injured. More than 500,000 people were displaced, thousands of homes were destroyed or badly damaged, roads were washed out, and over 600,000 acres of agricultural land were affected, destroying standing crops at a time when farmers could least afford the loss. For a province whose farms already struggle with water shortages and salinity — issues covered in our article on agriculture in Sukkur and Sindh — the rains of November 2024 were a double blow.
Why a City Beside a Barrage Still Floods
Visitors are often surprised that Sukkur, home of the great Sukkur Barrage on the Indus, can drown in rainwater. The reason is that river flooding and urban flooding are different problems. The barrage protects the city from the river; nothing protects it from the sky when its own drainage fails. Sukkur’s storm-water system dates largely from the colonial era and has not kept pace with the city’s growth. Natural drains (nullahs) that once carried runoff out of the city have been encroached on, narrowed or blocked with solid waste, while new housing has covered the ground that used to soak the rain up. When an extreme rain event arrives — and climate change is making these events more frequent across the Indus valley — the water has no exit, and the streets become the drain.
Impact on Lives and Infrastructure in Rohri District
In the rural areas of the district, the flooding damaged mud-and-brick homes that cannot withstand standing water, ruined stored harvests, drowned livestock and cut village roads for days. Schools and basic health facilities were disrupted just as winter set in, and the standing water left behind bred mosquitoes, raising the risk of malaria and dengue in the weeks that followed. The poorest families — daily wagers, tenants and small farmers — were hit hardest, losing both their homes and their income at once.
Relief, Recovery and the Road Ahead
Relief in the flooded districts was led by the provincial disaster management authorities with support from the armed forces, local administration and volunteer groups, who ran rescue boats, set up camps and distributed food and medicines. But recovery exposed the deeper issue: drainage. Engineers and citizens’ groups in Sukkur have long warned that the city needs a master drainage plan — restored nullahs with protected right-of-way, modern storm-water pumping, solid-waste systems that stop drains being used as rubbish tips, and rain-resilient road design. Until that work is funded and completed, every abnormal monsoon or winter rain event will repeat the scenes of November 2024.
A Reminder of 2022
The 2024 urban flooding came barely two years after the super-floods of 2022, when one-third of Pakistan stood under water and the Indus itself threatened the barrage — the Sukkur city guide explains how the city sits in the heart of this flood plain. Taken together, the two disasters frame the choice facing Sukkur and Rohri: keep rebuilding after each flood, or invest now in drainage, drainage-corridor protection and flood-resilient planning.
Map: Rohri and the surrounding flooded district, November 2024.
Flood Preparedness: What Families in Sukkur and Rohri Can Do
Floods cannot always be prevented, but their worst effects can be reduced at household level. Families in low-lying mohallas should keep important documents, medicines and a basic emergency bag on the highest shelf during monsoon and heavy-rain alerts; know the nearest high ground and the route to it; keep mobile phones charged through power cuts; avoid walking or driving through moving water, which needs only a few inches to knock a person over; and report blocked nullahs and manholes to the municipal authorities before the rains arrive rather than after. Shopkeepers on Station Road and Hussain Road can protect stock with raised platforms and sandbags, while households should assume that anything touched by floodwater is contaminated until boiled or washed with clean water.
References
- Pakistani and international news coverage of the November 2024 Sindh floods (district casualty and displacement figures as reported by the provincial government).
- PDMA Sindh situation reports, November–December 2024.
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