NAROWAL: The heavy rain that lashed the Sialkot city and its suburbs for an hour on Friday submerged roads and neighbourhoods of the city.

Sources say that it was the heaviest rain of the season. Many areas had one to three feet of rainwater accumulated in the streets, markets, roads and low-lying areas. Hundreds of motorcycles and dozens of cars broke down due to the rainwater and citizens were seen pushing their motorcycles and cars.

Due to heavy rain, Gohadpur Road, Head Marala Road, Defence Road, Urdu Bazaar, Muslim Bazaar, Trunk Bazaar, Shahabpura, Nikapura, Kashmir Road, Railway Road, Allama Iqbal Chowk and Kutchery Road, were flooded. Some areas like Rungpura were the worst affected.

Citizens Farhan Akhtar and Muhammad Danish said that the city had a flood problem due to the incompetence of the municipal corporation and the Sialkot Waste Management Company. They said if the sewerage had been cleared before the monsoon, rainwater would not have flooded the streets and markets as it did on Friday. They said that the sewage pipelines in the city were blocked and due to the blockage of the system, the rainwater got accumulated on the roads.

Local journalist Aftab Ahmed said that in 2016, a project was started in the city for a sewage system and clean drinking water with funds by the Asian Development Bank and an amount of Rs15bn was spent on it. But this project proved futile.

The citizens demanded that Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz take immediate notice of the situation in Sialkot.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2025