Portal Interactive: 23rd June 2007 – An Unforgettable Day

  •  This article is written by Waseen Ahmed for PWP from Karachi city, Sindh, Pakistan

Due to intense tropical Low/Depression moving from Bay of Bengal into central-western India, Karachiites were already facing acute hot and dry weather on Thursday, 21st June 2007 when it was 39°C but in the evening it turned dark and a dust/thunder shower gave the city some relief around 8 pm. However it was even hotter on next day i.e. Friday, 22nd June and high temperature was 42°C.

Car demolished under a fallen tree

Saturday, 23rd June 2007, morning: We were not expecting anything special but another very hot day, with dry and warm breeze already blowing from NE.

11 am – 12 noon: Increasingly hot breeze coming from ENE and temperature was already touching 40°C.

1 – 2 pm: It turned even extremely hot, more than expectations, and it touched 44°C by 2 pm with strong dry, very hot winds from NE and few stray type clouds coming from ENE.

2 – 3 pm: At the same time some good cumulous & cirrus clouds appeared especially at SE side of city, moving in ‘traditional Monsoon way’ (from ENE) and kept building in that SE corner.

Satellite image of the evening

4 pm: Some dark and ‘promising’ patches of clouds moving ENE to WSW, mostly were in SE part of city, then few reports of drizzling reported even then very hot wind continues.

4:30 pm: In no time, almost whole eastern horizon of the city turned ‘grayish black’ as clouds quickly turned into a storm blanket or ‘ghata’. Bit surprisingly for me, even then there was not such stifling (hubs) condition and wind continued from NE.

4:40 pm onwards: Then those devastating period of 40-45 minutes that convert the City of Lights into Pictures of destruction. Initially the sky turned dusty yellowish, extremely strong winds up to 110 kmh started blowing with intense dust, later may be after 15 minutes, rain also accompanied with demolishing winds that continued till 5:20 or 5:25, then again surprisingly storm suddenly stopped and then just drizzle continued for a while. By the night it remained mostly cloudy with drizzle at times and almost no breeze.

It caused over 220 lives in city and its outskirts, most of them caused by ‘flying objects’ like roofs, sign boards, walls collapse, and electrical poles, wires accidents.

Honestly, even I and most of people in Karachi, as ‘Rain lovers’ would never want to see such day again here or anywhere but such events give us (people and as well governments/authorities) a lot of lessons to get prepare for any natural disaster, avoiding its losses as much as possible and most importantly to ask Allah for His forgiveness and blessings.

Portal Interactive – Get Interactive now!

Send your weather articles, research, ideas, videos or pictures on babar.cyclone@yahoo.com Your article would be published on Pakistan Weather Portal (PWP) with your name and city, without any changes. So you could also be the part of Portal Interactive!

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3 replies to “Portal Interactive: 23rd June 2007 – An Unforgettable Day

  1. @ K.M, Yes, Unforgettable Day, Heavy rain after scorching sunshine But in 2007 due to Poor system of this city it claimed almost 200 lives.Now, the condition was much better in 2009 when it rained heavily one day but no heavy damages occur and Now in 2011-12 the condition is also much better than 2009 and now city can easily tolerate heavy rains but there is no name of heavy rains after that. Government will do expense for Karachi for heavy if and only if Karachi gets heavy rains everywhere like other cities. Pak Government thinks that Karachi does not get heavy rains every year so there is no need such big expense. If Karachi gets proper heavy rains every year then, Government will do expense

  2. @ K.M, Pakistan Government only takes revenue from Karachi and cannot do anything to make Karachi like an international city. If Karachi gets proper heavy rains whole year then only Government will do expenses. Pakistan Government is very stingy and after dollars

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