Arya News - This year alone, 23 people have died in Karachi by falling into manholes and open sewers, of whom eight were children.
KARACHI – This year alone, 23 people have died in Karachi by falling into manholes and open sewers, of whom eight were children.
“The echo of the mother’s screams still rings in my ears,” said a cop who was on duty near Karachi’s Nipa Chowrangi on the fateful night of November 30. The constable was at the site when the incident occurred; a three-year-old child had fallen to his death in an open manhole.
Ibrahim and his parents were exiting the Chase Department Store in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, from where they had purchased monthly groceries. The father was on the motorcycle, while the mother-son duo followed behind. Suddenly, the excited three-year-old boy ran towards his dad, who was a few footsteps away, but instead of falling into the safe arms of his father, he fell into a pitch-black manhole.
What ensued was witnessed by most of Karachi on television and mobile screens: a hysterical mother begging for her child, a search operation that lasted 15 long hours and an apathetic city administration that barely batted an eye.
“The manhole had been uncovered for days,” the constable, who wished to remain anonymous, told Dawn as he stood at the same spot a day later. Behind him, several labourers were working to repair the sewage pipes that had been dug up and sliced during the rescue operation to search for the child.
Construction work continues at Nipa Chowrangi days after Ibrahim’s death. PHOTO PROVIDED BY DAWN
The manhole, on the other hand, was still uncovered. “ Ab kya faida? Bacha to gir gaya (what is the use now? the child fell and died) ,” the policeman lamented, as a group of nine- and 10-year-old boys passed by.
In 2023, some 68 people were reportedly lost to manholes in Karachi. From January to November this year, another 22 people have died by falling into manholes and open sewers, according to data compiled by the Edhi Foundation. Of the latter, eight were children, all of whom were 10 years old or younger.
The rescue operation
Three-year-old Ibrahim Nabeel, budding with life, the only child of his parents, became the 23rd victim of the year. His body was found almost a kilometre away, the day after he fell into the manhole at Nipa Chowrangi.
That fateful night, teams of the Rescue 1122 and Edhi Foundation scrambled through Karachi’s dilapidated underground sewage network that comprises 43 major drains and 516 drain water channels, until the operation had to be halted due to visibility issues.
Realistically, the timespan within which a person can be rescued from a manhole alive is two minutes or less . For a child as young as Ibrahim, this window is even shorter.
“At 10:29pm, we received a complaint at the Command and Control Centre,” Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassaan ul Haseeb told Dawn. By 10:56pm, the first responder unit had reached the site, where a mob-like situation had formed — angry and agitated residents had gathered. A search operation was immediately commenced.
“One of our divers went to the bottom of the manhole in which the child fell, but the flow of the sewage water was rapid, and he couldn’t find anything,” he explained, adding that water from four other nullahs was also flowing through the same site.
Subsequently, heavy machinery — called in by Ibrahim’s family and locals for Rs15,000 from the nearby BRT construction site — was used to dig into the sewerage lines, but to no avail. The excavation was done 2km along the service lane adjacent to the Chase department store. “The delay in this was caused because we didn’t have a blueprint or map of Karachi’s underground water drainage system.”
The rescue team, Haseeb continued, was unaware of the inlets and outlets of the sewage drains and their choke points. “We were relying on the judgment and knowledge of locals,” he said, explaining that relevant departments — district administration, town municipal corporation and Karachi Metropolitan Corporation — were responsible for providing the blueprint. But they were unavailable on the night of the tragedy.
Even if they were present, they wouldn’t be able to do anything because no structural documentation exists for Karachi’s sewerage and stormwater network.
Eventually, a few hours past midnight, the search operation was halted due to a lack of visibility, which Haseeb said was in accordance with international protocols for underwater rescue and search. The operation resumed early the next morning.
“We had positioned our volunteers at eight sewage points along a one to two kilometre stretch of the service lane,” he told Dawn , adding that the child’s body was finally found near the Sir Syed University, around a kilometre from where he had fallen into the manhole.
Edhi workers conduct rescue operation to find Ibrahim’s body on Dec 1. PHOTO PROVIDED BY DAWN
Meanwhile, Farooq, an Edhi worker who was also involved in the rescue operation, said that the Foundation received a call at the control centre at around 11:15pm. It took him about 20-25 minutes to gather a team to reach the site, where he recalled Rescue 1122 officials were already present.
“We took some directions from them and divided the areas for the search operation,” he said. “But around 3:30am, the operation was halted due to visibility issues.” When the rescue operation commenced again in daylight, Farooq decided that it was time to go down inside the sewage pipes, as otherwise the chances of finding Ibrahim’s body were slim.
“After crossing 40-50 pipes, we found ourselves in front of two pipes that were choked with garbage.” But underneath Karachi’s uneven roads, oxygen was deficient due to toxic gases, and with every passing moment, it became difficult to breathe. “So we drilled two holes into the pipes, and as they began clearing, the sewage water flow increased exponentially.”
Ultimately, along with the water, Ibrahim’s body too floated out from a sewage drain at a short distance, where a teenage boy identified as Tanveer found it. The three-year-old boy was subsequently moved to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre in an Edhi ambulance.
Banners calling for resignation of Mayor Murtaza Wahab hung opposite Chase store. PHOTO PROVIDED BY DAWN
At JPMC, Ibrahim’s grandfather, Mehmoodul Hasan, received the body. The three-year-old’s mother was unconscious, and his father stricken with grief. Meanwhile, relatives of the grieving family, along with residents and political workers of Jamaat-i-Islami, reached the site the same day and held a protest .
Murtaza Wahab must resign immediately, they demanded angrily. Later that evening, Ibrahim was laid to rest.
Who is to blame?
The city’s mayor, on the other hand, only focused on the rhetoric surrounding the incident. At a press conference the same day, he said: “Unfortunately, when this kind of thing happens, we immediately go toward blame […] if there is a human tragedy, then is it necessary to bring politics into it?”
The nonchalance in Wahab’s tone, who was likened by the Sindh chief minister to New York’s Zohran Mamdani until a few weeks back, was too evident to be ignored. It worsened when a journalist tried to hold him accountable by asking why he was addressing a media talk instead of visiting the family, why he hadn’t visited the site of the incident, and where he was during the 15-hour-long rescue operation.
The exchange grew heated, responsibility was deflected, and frustration piled up until finally, the mayor apologised; an apology that was forced, an apology that didn’t sound so sincere, an apology that Karachi has heard several times but lacks any subsequent action.
Thus began a blame game. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) blamed the TransKarachi and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Red Line, which blamed the Karachi Water and Sewage Corporation, which said the stormwater drain involved in the incident does not fall under its jurisdiction. A vicious cycle with no end in sight.
Dawn reached out to Murtaza Wahab but did not hear back from him until the filing of the story.
Today, six days after the incident, authorities have failed to determine who is responsible for leaving the manhole open. But Dawn found that the KMC had already been alerted to the manhole problem between Hassan Square and Nipa Chowrangi on October 20.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY DAWN
“We wrote three letters to the mayor and the chief minister this year regarding the problems caused due to the BRT construction work (traffic, open sewers, holey roads),” said Riaz Azhar, the UC chairman of the locality. “But we never received any response.”
Finally, on Oct 20, Azhar met with the BRT committee to discuss the aforementioned issues, after which a document detailing the minutes of the meeting was sent to the KMC. The second pointer of the document, a copy of which is available with Dawn , said: “covered all manholes through rings and covers on service lanes (at Asr-e-Shirin shop block 13-A). No output.”
In a response on Oct 29, Azhar was told that the contractor assigned for manhole covers had fled due to a dispute, and there was nothing that could be done. “A month later, a child was gulped down,” he said. “Had the chief minister and mayor acted on time, a tragedy of such a proportion could have been prevented.”
He explained that the KWSC, headed by Mayor Wahab, was responsible for all sewage-related concerns, for which it had launched a 1334 helpline. “Unfortunately, it was only responsive for so long.”
A few years back, the UC-02 chairman recalled, the KWSC provided 20-25 manhole covers per month to each union committee free of cost. But the process is usually so long and tedious that it is preferred to purchase the covers from the market, where they cost Rs700, Azhar said.
Following the Nipa manhole incident, the KMC approved a day earlier nearly Rs300 million per year —Rs100,000 per month each — for all union committees to exclusively maintain manhole covers and streetlights.
When asked why the UC did not purchase a manhole cover for the one in which Ibrahim fell, the chairman lamented, “How would we know which manhole is missing where?”
He further explained that each UC was given a monthly fund of Rs1.2 million, half of which was spent on salaries. The other half was used for contracts and quotations — each of which cost Rs300,000 — and the remaining was spent on bills. Separately, the expenditure for each of the four UC wards was Rs25,000.
“And when we use our own funds for any such repairs, we are reprimanded for it by the KMC,” Azhar added. However, he did admit that the town chairman, who had reached the incident site at 11pm on the night of Nov 30, should have made efforts to expedite the rescue operation instead of waiting for the machinery to be arranged.
For its part, the KWSC spokesperson Abdul Qadir Sheikh told Dawn that they had a comprehensive complaint management system where anyone — from the city and town council to ordinary citizens — could lodge their queries by calling the helpline. The aim, according to Sheikh, was to resolve them at the earliest. He, however, did not admit or deny whether a complaint, as mentioned by Azhar, was sent to the KWSC regarding the missing manhole covers.
To another question, Sheikh concurred that 25 manhole covers were indeed provided to the UC. “In the case of a need for more, they can write to the concerned department.” He explained that apart from the complaints, executive engineers also undertook efforts to ensure that all manholes were covered in their respective areas.
From Oct 23, 2024, to Dec 1, 2025, the KWSC received a total of 1,543 complaints regarding open manholes, of which 89.94 per cent were resolved, data provided by the corporation showed. In the Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town, 107 out of 110 such queries were resolved.
Ibrahim fell into one of the three remaining manholes.
“I don’t want to place responsibility on any one department; we are all to blame for it … nothing is dearer to us more than the people of Karachi,” Sheikh remarked. But when asked if an internal inquiry or investigation had been initiated by the KWSC to determine why the manhole in question was left open, he did not have an answer.
Meanwhile, UC Chairman Azhar, after complaining about the state of affairs, held Ibrahim’s parents and the Chase department store responsible. “They [the parents] should have been more careful, and the department store, where hundreds and thousands of people come every day, should have installed a manhole.”
“Should have been more responsible” — the phrase is Karachi’s favourite absolution. A dumper truck crushes a motorcyclist? The driver should have been careful . A child goes missing? The family should have been careful . A three-year-old slips from his mother’s hand and disappears into an open manhole within seconds? The parents, too, should have been careful .
Ultimately, all Karachiites must be “careful” because the responsibility of their well-being does not lie with those who build, manage or govern the city — instead, it lies with the people who are simply trying to live in it. Where safety depends not on systems, but luck. Where we tell parents, pedestrians, and drivers to be vigilant — because the city will not be vigilant for them. Here, you survive if you can. And if you don’t, well … you should have been more “careful”.
The systematic collapse
Karachi’s pressing infrastructural gaps are not a new topic of discussion. Unfortunately, they are only brought up when a life is lost, especially that of a three-year-old innocent child.
The pattern is almost recognisable now: visit the victims with photographers and videographers in tow, feign empathy and concern, sack a bunch of ‘not so important’ officials, and give it a few days until the incident fades into a painful memory.
Or better yet, turn it into a controversy. In the case of this one, a grieving grandfather’s love was questioned, as he had to sit before the media and clarify that he did not take any money from the KMC for issuing statements in favour of them.
“All institutions linked to this tragedy are responsible,” he stressed by the end of his media talk. The institutions he referred to are the confluence of Karachi’s three-tier local government structure, which comprises about 250 UCs, 25 town municipal corporations, and the KMC — read mayor — that reigns above them all.
Within this organogram are also various state institutions that are a part of the structure: here, the KWSC.
“Open manholes are essentially reflective of a systematic failure,” said urban planner Bilal Khalid. “It is not a one-off incident.” He explained that a missing manhole is a problem that lies right at the local level because it exists in gallis and muhallas.
And it should be solved by the UC, because the people higher up in the hierarchy have a broader scope of work. “You cannot expect the mayor to personally ensure that every manhole is covered, and this is why UCs exist.”
But here, the power was never devolved, and so, the mayor is responsible because he is the head of the KWSC, which looks after all sewage-related matters. “It is simple: a manhole is missing, the UC chairman is told, he collects a cover from the council inventory and gets it installed.”
Instead, what happens is that even if the UC is told of a missing manhole, he will first have to file a complaint at the KWSC office because neither the TMC nor the KMC have the authority to solve the issue. “The hierarchy that is shown to you or any other citizen of Karachi is far from the ground reality.
“The solution is very clear: the devolution of power. In this case, the best solution can come from the local representatives.” He emphasised that the authority for local muhalla -related matters should lie with the TMC, terming it “crucial”. It should be authorised, funded and provided with inventory, among other things.
Khalid added that regular monitoring by TMCs would ultimately lead to mapping of sewage and water lines, which is the most critical for Karachi. “This is something that the KWSC cannot do because it does not have localised wings.”
Urban planner Farhan Anwar concurred. He termed young Ibrahim’s death “symbolic of a larger level of institutional bankruptcy that presently defines Karachi’s governance construct”, a problem that has existed in the port city of 20.3 million residents for years.
“Years of political battles over control of power and resources have rendered all our institutions impotent,” he deplored. “It is like flogging a dead horse because the mandate of these institutions has been twisted completely.” Basically, the merit and capacity required to solve Karachi’s issues have eluded key organisations.
Despite housing a big chunk of the country’s economic and human capital, the city lacks people-centric planning and development, he explained. “The problems are political, the problems are institutional, the problems are related to a complete dysfunctionality that exists within the governance construct of Karachi.”
The only solutions, he went on to say, lie at the political level. “There has to be a show of strong political will to completely redo and overhaul the governance architecture in Karachi, whereby the relevant institutions are given the power, authority, and functions that are relevant at that tier/level.”
The manhole in which Ibrahim fell. PHOTO PROVIDED BY DAWN
Ibrahim did not die because of one missing manhole cover. He died because Karachi is governed by institutions built to fight each other rather than serve the people who live in .
What’s needed is not another committee, another apology, or another reshuffling of duties. It is the political will to return power to the level where problems actually exist — the street, the lane, the neighbourhood. Without that, no document, no plan, and no new model of manhole will save lives.
Because in Karachi, people do not fall into manholes — they fall through the gaps of a system that refuses to hold itself accountable.