As the climate
emergency brings rising seas, Gwadar’s Ganz village is losing the battle after
centuries of existence.
Abdul Jabbar sits under the porch of his only remaining
room. He raises his finger in the air, pointing toward the sea and its waves
breaking two to three meters away. “This had fed us for centuries but now we
fear for our lives and our homes,” Jabbar says.
The boundary wall of his home had already fallen off by the
end of October, after Cyclone Kyarr hit Ganz village. “If we
get a meter or two more – nothing will remain. Not a block of our only room!”
says the 60-year-old, before he walks a few steps closer to the waves.
As a fisherman, Abdul Jabbar has seen the frequency with
which the sea water spills over large boats and hits the village. He has seen
the village flood throughout his life, “but now the waves are getting stronger,
higher, and closer year-on-year.”
Rising sea levels have eroded away the coastline near Ganz village, eating away at this seaside home. |
Ganz is a small harbor village with a population of more
than 2,000 people around 50 kilometers away from Gwadar, Pakistan’s
strategically significant port city. Though Gwadar city has a pivotal role in
the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) a flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it
has not much affected the local population of Gwadar city yet — let alone the
villages nearby, which are not necessarily part of Gwadar’s master plan. Hence
the villagers are left out of the development rush, even as they are most
vulnerable to coastal hazards.
Cyclone Kyarr, which hit Ganz two months ago, was one of the
most powerful tropical cyclones the Arabian Sea has seen in the last 12 years,
according to NASA’s Hurricane and Typhoon Updates. On
October 25, 2019, the cyclone formed near the southwestern coast of India and
rapidly intensified into a strong storm moving toward Oman and the coastal belt
of Pakistan.
Sameeh Baloch, an engineer working with Gwadar Development
Authority, is also a resident of Ganz. “This village has the dubious accolade
of being one of the most vulnerable villages in district Gwadar,” he says.
“There are no mountains all through the east and northern part of the village,
it’s where the cyclones hit harder.”
“Though a number of houses had already fallen off in the
previous coastal cyclones, there are houses under water now and houses with no
boundary walls,” he adds.
In a conservative Baloch locality, every house — small or
big, made of cement or mud — is surrounded by boundary walls. It is a cultural
symbol of honor and protection. But many, like Abdul Jabbar, cannot afford to
rebuild these walls.
Immediately after the disaster, the Alkhidmat Foundation, a
local nonprofit organization, surveyed the area. According to their data, most
people demanded boundary walls before any other aid. “As we reported the survey
analysis to our head office, we received 200,000 rupees [roughly $1,300] for
providing temporary boundary walls made out of bamboo wood and fabric,” says
Nadil Ali, the president of the Alkhidmat Foundation in Gwadar district.
It is not only housing at risk when a place suffers from
repeated coastal disasters. The economic impact cannot be overlooked. “It is
obvious that we cannot go fishing when the coast is rough… many of our boats
are shattered into pieces and our fishing nets flown away with the waves,” says
a local fisherman.
“Despite being a high-risk area, there is an entrenched
reluctance on the part of people to abandon their ancestral lands, the reason
being fear of losing their coastal livelihoods and their homes or what little
they own,” says Sameeh Baloch.
The local government has marked out an evacuation route,
which was also used during the recent cyclone. However, if the population stays
in the high-risk area, there is an immediate need to find engineering solutions
to withstand disasters.
Baloch has a suggestion: “As long as the population stays
here, for the time being, protection walls near the coast have to be created.
Another immediate solution would be construction of a breakwater within the
coast that would work as a seawall, not letting the water enter the village…
[it] can also be used by the fishermen to safely berth their boats.” He points
toward a similar breakwater constructed in the western bay of Gwadar city in
2016.
“However, for the long term, the entire village of Ganz has
to be relocated to a safer location, for which we had written a letter to the
local administration in 2016 through our community organization, Rural
Development Society,” Baloch says. “Previously, there was not much support to
our proposal but recently, the local administration seems more concerned.”
The additional deputy commissioner for Gwadar, Anees Tariq,
says, “A protection wall is proposed, which could minimize the damage during
such calamities. Further, contingency plans are in process for relocating the
entire population of Ganz permanently to a nearby hill, Koh-e-Deedag. For this
the provincial government is launching a project, which will soon be
inaugurated.”
For the residents of Ganz, though, at the moment there is
little choice but to stay in the high-risk area. Abdul Jabbar contemplates what
might happen to his little village over the years if the latest government
plans fail to secure enough funding or, even if they do get funding, if it
takes longer for the construction work to begin.
“There is so much uncertainty in predicting when the next
disaster might hit our village, collapsing more of our houses and breaking away
more of our fishing boats.” says Jabbar, glancing out to the emerald green
tides of the Arabian Sea.
Published in The Diplomat Magazine on December 27, 2019
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