Pakistan
The two flood waves in Pakistan continue to cause extreme levels of suffering.  According to the FFD hydrographs the water level at Sukkur is now falling slowly after the passage of the first flood wave:
What  has been particularly interesting though is that the flood level is not  really increasing substantially at Kotri, the large gauging station  downstream:
This  presumably means one of two things.  First, it could be that the water  is finding another route - i.e. that it is bypassing the gauging  station.  Alternatively, the water is in effect trapped between the two  sites, which might explain the very slow falling limb of the  hydrograph. 
The Google Earth satellite image below shows Kotri: 
It is possible that the water has flooded the adjacent land, but the news reports  indicate that this is not the case, with the suggestion that the  bridges downstream of Sukkur are slowing the flow down.  This is  dangerous in the context of the second flood wave, which at the moment  remains smaller than the first.  This is the hydrograph for Taunsa,  which is just below the "Extremely High" flood level:
At  Guddu the discharge is still falling, but only very slowly.  Indeed the  discharge remains well above the "Exceptionally High" level:
The  danger must be that the second flood wave starts to catch up with, and  build upon, the stalled first wave.  This would create the potential for  an extremely damaging second phase of floods.  It took six days for the  first wave to pass from Taunsa to Guddu, and a further day to Sukkur.   The hope must be that the water level starts to fall quickly at these  two sites before the second wave arrives.
Unfortunately, it is clear that this slow motion disaster has several more weeks to go, even if there is no further heavy rain.
 





 
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