Pakistan's City with No Water | Unreported World

[Music] this is what many people have to go through to get water in Karachi hundreds have been queuing at this waterboard office under a hot Sun for seven hours it's meant to be first-come first-served the locals say water here is going to the highest bidder this is a poor neighborhood the residents believe the water board officials don't care about them the army is called in over 20 million people live in Karachi but very few have running water in their homes instead they rely on government pipelines and hydrants where tankers fill up then deliver water to homes and businesses but people say it's very difficult to get a tanker to deliver water to their house lots of people will leave here without water today making the situation worse the city's water is running out I go home with magma perv in one of the women who spends her days queuing at the waterboard office a tanker delivered water last week but it's almost run out nama looks after her children full-time Celine Qureshi her husband Labor's on building sites when he can get work the daughter Achra has severe disabilities the maple acting did men are gonna take a bath bunny what do you do when you don't get enough water nam la toma de bourree bourree repertoire t record a productive achievement artificial pollination good reproductive did not ring it to preserve those environment you know adapting knock mosses it's cheaper to buy second-hand clothes for her daughter and buy the water to wash them and a master it is total [ __ ] Damien nepata [Music] when you see a family who's dealing with a child with a disability it's far more extreme to not have something as basic as water water has become very valuable criminal gangs are cycling off water from the pipes that supplied the official hydrants and selling it on the black market for big profits Assaf Qadri a senior water board official is in charge of cracking down on water theft men do like I a gang selling water can earn in a day want many and in a year people call them the tanker mafia finding it you got it that's along the routes Kamara my gurus Kamara or celebrity mrs. William recorded a reggae bulldog its main Beluga dementia trustee [Music] Assaf and his team have been tipped off about an illegal water hydrant they're going to demolish it we have now been joined by police Rangers other members of the water board and the digger that's going to destroy the illegal hydron the criminals have run off Assaf shows me the illegal water source thickening into rican degree punctuality good luck tagging as a date okay ships car to make the other keys a system to modulate resistible activities what you have security here don't come in here actually you know get up in integrity they just destroyed one hydrogen apparently there are two others that are going to destroy in the exact same area they find another pump criminals have used this pump to extract water from as deep as 200 feet underground locals depended on this illegal supply though the water was dirty it was better than no water at all drinking water now or any water spilling in semi animal time near connection in a Judah connection in nearby John Yannone attraction di Marco Marra purusottama connection the apnic Haney a panini a gossipy une connection say in kapoor radio kappa resupplied may open till and Stephanie genomics kill you each every polygon agar-agar off poor legal 3 Kasich who choose the Himalayas vodka right nobody figure be legal to the castle a rickety ice cream or three cocina glycogen from Nikolaev are a superior michael any a proper vehicle [Music] [Music] some neighborhoods in Karachi do have a legal pipeline connection but getting water is difficult there too we're on our way to an area called the Runge it's a very poor area and there are about two million people that live there this is marinus 'his and she's taking me to her home the pipeline she depends on only works for an hour or so every 15 days it's been two weeks since her family last got water upon each other most of its not even fit to bathe in meat Abadi was the other rototilling Ahana be rugged make it happen in an agonal cool battle Fatima gets angry I've caught up on evilkisser maybe not ha dicho TSM because the water is scheduled to come tonight she and her husband are getting ready hospital feed pipe yeah get cool too many good yeah silly girl at the party happened a goddess how many of these are you going to try and fill tonight many questions others another but it comes and come now muj a minute but the water board doesn't always turn on the pipes when they're meant to be honest who Socrates just been funny name alte push name Otto kangaroo this is I can't imagine having to wake up in the middle of the night you've got four children you have to run down massively steep hill just to get clean water for the next 15 days I want to see how it all works so they tell me to come back around midnight but when I returned to marinus neighborhood instead of the bustle I expect to find the streets are deserted and panini a cosine even iike a candie which meaning desire Annie I don't talk of you whether we're after your head start doin everybody monkey Tommy potentially that I give on Yemen all Mariners are can do is wait another day as her water supply gets lower the water system desperately needs more investment and better management but there are other reasons for the water shortage we keep hearing about water scarcity in Karachi so we're going to the agricultural lands out east where there should be water and to see how it's been affected I've come to farmland at the edge of the city the fig Basha is a farmer and one of Pakistan's best-known environmentalists this 200 year old well uses underground channels that used to flow with rainwater now those channels only provide water with a high salt content so essentially what once was the source of clean water has now become contaminated to drink this water this water could be drunk now my plants my trees are dying and and it's happening all over why has the water changed because the rains have stopped coming which is because of climate change and there is definitely a shortage of water and it affects everyone's lives [Music] the water from this area used to supply karachi but not anymore this used to be a farm 12 years ago there was nothing but greenery over here every piece of land you see was somebody growing vegetable or fruit and now it's nothing but barren land other local farmers aware of climate change oh yes certainly this definitely has affected their lives and then they know that the climate has changed because they were used to rains [Music] okay you're looking at the Mahadeva which is a storm water drain I remember seeing water right across from one end to the other end probably 40 feet deep it was not a slow moving River it was a flash flood when was the last time you saw water here I have not seen the malevolent flood in 10 years and the reasons for that are that is that is no rains a United Nations report predicts that this will be one of the country's worst affected by climate change over the next decades it says conditions like water scarcity can jeopardize the very existence of Pakistan I'm on my way to marry mrs. and she's only got one day of clean water left so I really hope they get the water tonight with water supplies now running very low people are on the streets anxiously waiting we wait for hours but nothing happens just after 5:00 a.m. comes the news that the water is flowing [Laughter] [Music] maranatha husband muhammad heads down the hill he and his neighbor's link hose pipes to the water mains wires are connected to the streets electricity supply to run the pumps [Music] the water is finally flowing but there's a problem it's not clean waters sewage water you can smell how dirty it is Muhammad believes sewage has leaked into the water pipe after 20 minutes the water stops smelling but it's still dirty you Karina it's come up the barrier softening is happening to that woman after an hour and a half the water stops running don't you look at Kabaddi don't you know leg is an abundance a body body come you know what are you going to do for the rest of the day I'll be waiting everyone every night 7 August but your party school that you need in go karma - only till Madras if I rapidly piddle skip a plasticizer only speak homage I was a comical movie i rambling a Bradley bother with you so everyone is exhausted it's quite a way to start a Monday morning [Music] of course it's no surprise that there are some areas in Karachi where people can legally get as much water as they want when they wanted most of Karachi is very densely populated the area we're in right now is called the fence and it's very rich which means there are very large homes with very few people living inside we've seen a lot of tankers in this area so a following one now to see where it goes [Music] affion tanker didn't Sarnia in this house it's the security guards that handle the water how often does this tanker come to this house every three days okay yeah and how much four thousand rupees per think that's that's a big expense very expensive 4,000 rupees can be more than a week's wage for many Pakistanis and it's four times the official world board price but the people in this area can afford it amethyst the housekeeper here the owners of the house don't want to appear on camera but let me look around [Music] how much water do you need to fill this poor richard's Akali without the door dr. Perfetti will obtain this house has tapped Schenectady the mains but if there's ever a problem they can afford other options we've been telling the panini are at the tinkerer caliper Suman the vibe on Mozgov are the per diem arrived because you were able to buy water from the tank rather than rely on the main line you could get water for the swimming pool at the very bottom que sigue patina canon de física part i think about everything the variables over 1000 take a mechanically considering uno con amira the variable thing this is Sweetwater and in most places in Karachi people are struggling to get this just for drinking water but in areas like this people don't drink this water this household only drinks bottled mineral water [Music] the next day I'm back in R&D I meet up with Mohammad Suraj an activist fighting to get people fair access to water he tells me his colleague was murdered after documenting illegal hydrants many think she was killed by a criminal gang despite the dangers Suraj continues to track water theft and he wants to show us something [Music] what is this that was seeing right now they can be I'm definitely a joke hi Trent I'm so much take a ver con Mooney egg this is not on the water boards list of legal hydrants yet it seems to be operating completely openly Moluccan a cha water board Valley convert their water would one of the within a minim cute what about converting a height or number if this is an illegal hydrant why hasn't it been destroyed yeah powerful many it's with powerful men but over as you need the money that you make at this hydrant does it go to the water board yes of course but it's an illegal hydrant yes my can be chained in aluminum up someone's in the chain chain find Wendover change this window watch a china kiloliters if there was a car in the Charlie this is the money back money is the sub girl and this isn't an isolated case sources told us there were dozens of illegal hydrants with alleged links to corrupt water board officials we wanted to ask the water board about this but the managing director refused to come on camera eventually another senior official agreed to meet us ouais Malik runs the water board in the western part of Karachi where we've been filming ordinary people in the wrong you don't have enough water what are you going to do about it is a big problem do start work who can say well jump Hamada pass the main source of water supply curve will dry over ah certain members of the water board mismanaging the water in or aangie yeah we've heard allegations that some officials in the water board are corrupt Abu Bakr Yaga ability rude interruption hope America will call corruption yoga boss of a corruption hey Ganga Ganga individually are the individuals in the water board who are making money from illegal hydrants individual Jessica over-pursue Makassar capella was obtained individual investor as a Pakistani I feel real hopelessness in the situation that I can go in talk to a member of the water board about corruption openly in his own office building [Music] I go back to see Nagma and her daughter Achra in the days since I've seen them the water had run out [Music] Dankers didi that silly guy with no water in the house knock my heads for the hydrant the hydrant is closed Nagma has no choice but to scavenge for water [Music] she's trapped between wheat governance and climate change it's a pattern repeated in many fast-growing cities in the developing world [Music] one of the tanker drivers has been cleaning out his tank he says she can take the dregs it's only a few liters but it will see them through the rest of the day thanks for watching this classic unreported world episode click the logo to subscribe for more award-winning documentaries from the unreported world team we upload videos every Wednesday and Sunday keeping you up-to-date with content from all over the world [Music]

Channel: Unreported World

Views: 3,873,856

Keywords: karachi, karachi water, pakistan water, karachi water crisis, karachi water documentary, pakistan water documentary, fazeelat aslem, the city with no water, climate change, water shortage, pakistan water crisis, pakistan water shortage, pakistan water issues, water scarcity in pakistan, water dispenser price in pakistan, water problems, unreported world, channel 4 unreported world, channel 4

Id: lWraEBec0Vg

Length: 22min 56sec (1376 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/abdoo_m]

Fuck PPP and MQM.

[u/Its_Malignant]

Here are some relevant videos from everyday Pakistanis on the topic

Contaminated water

Open sewage

Leaking pipes wasting water

Open gutters in Karachi

[u/Evilleader]

it´s so fucking sad to see my home country like this ;(

[u/latkabanta]

FOLKS, VOTE FOR PTI. At least they take our problems seriously.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]