Karachi’s infrastructure is killing us, literally |
Earlier this month, Karachi awoke once again to a tragedy that should shake any functioning society to its core. A three-year-old boy, Ibrahim, was walking along a familiar street when he slipped into a gaping manhole and never made it out. His body was recovered the next day, after a 15-hour rescue operation.
The CCTV clip many of us have now seen lasts only a few seconds, yet it’s impossible to forget: one moment he’s there; the next, he’s swallowed whole by the very city meant to protect him.
That hole didn’t open by chance. It was left yawning on a busy Karachi artery, unbarricaded, unmarked, unlit. And yet, we reach for the word “accident.” It isn’t. It’s the predictable consequence of a city abandoned to rot, theft, and overlapping jurisdictions, where the most basic promise of safety collapses under the weight of indifference.
Karachi’s infrastructure is not just failing us; it is killing us.
In the days after the incident, officials traded blame. An internal municipal report pointed to nearby construction and commercial entities for leaving the manhole uncovered. Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab promised an “impartial inquiry”. The Sindh High Court (SHC) is now hearing a plea for a judicial probe. But for Ibrahim’s family, and for a city that has seen this pattern before, the real question is larger than one uncovered opening or one report.
Because this was not a freak event. Karachi is now a city where its drainage system can swallow a child whole. A city where the infrastructure meant to carry away........