THATTA: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Sassul Palijo has warned that the coastal districts of Thatta, Sujawal and Badin may vanish by 2050 as mentioned in a report recently prepared by the standing committee of the upper house if appropriate measures were not taken to ensure that the Indus River follows its original course.

The senator was speaking to the media during her visit to Ghorabari, Keti Bunder, Kharo Chann, Sajan Wari, Jhangisar, Garho, Dhandhari and other areas submerged by floodwater over the last couple of weeks. She was accompanied by Provincial Disaster Management Authority director-general Salman Shah, Thatta deputy commissioner Nadeemur Rehman Memon and Thatta PPP general secretary Sadiq Memon.

Senator Palijo called for evolving a strategy on an emergency basis considering the fact that the Indus was changing its course posing a serious threat to the population as well as to hundreds of thousands of acres of farmlands in the three districts.

Agreeing that the inundation of farmlands was a boon as this increased the lands` fertility, she said the Indus changing its course was, however, not a good omen.

As part of the strategy, she added, all obstructions including illegally raised bunds, along the original course of the Indus must be removed; mangroves along the coastline should be grown on a large scale and measures to prevent sea erosion be taken on an emergency basis.

Ms Palijo said that the strategy, coupled with heavy rainfall and flow of floodwater in the deltaic region, would also help flora and fauna, mangrove forests zand fish and shrimp hatcheries, besides containing hyper salinity in the coastal areas.

Environmental activists Usman Baloch, Shafi Murghar, Usman Kumbhar, Essa Palijo, Sikandar Chandio and Mir Hassan Jat briefed the senator about the situation in the aftermath of the passage of deluge in the region.