Near Disaster: Gwadar’s Little Village Faces a Crumbling Coastline

Abdul Jabbar sits under the porch of his only remaining room. He raises his finger in the air, pointing toward the sea and its waves breaking two to three meters away. “This had fed us for centuries but now we fear for our lives and our homes,” Jabbar says.

The boundary wall of his home had already fallen off by the end of October, after Cyclone Kyarr hit Ganz village. “If we get a meter or two more – nothing will remain. Not a block of our only room!” says the 60-year-old, before he walks a few steps closer to the waves.

As a fisherman, Abdul Jabbar has seen the frequency with which the sea water spills over large boats and hits the village. He has seen the village flood throughout his life, “but now the waves are getting stronger, higher, and closer year-on-year.”

Ganz is a small harbor village with a population of more than 2,000 people around 50 kilometers away from Gwadar, Pakistan’s strategically significant port city. Though Gwadar city has a pivotal role in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) a flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it has not much affected the local population of Gwadar city yet — let alone the villages nearby, which are not necessarily part of Gwadar’s master plan. Hence the villagers are left out of the development rush, even as they are most vulnerable to coastal hazards.

Cyclone Kyarr, which hit Ganz two months ago, was one of the most powerful tropical cyclones the Arabian Sea has seen in the last 12 years, according to NASA’s Hurricane and Typhoon Updates. On October 25, 2019, the cyclone formed near the southwestern coast of India and rapidly intensified into a strong storm moving toward Oman and the coastal belt of Pakistan.

Sameeh Baloch, an engineer working with Gwadar Development Authority, is also a resident of Ganz. “This village has the dubious accolade of being one of the most vulnerable villages in district Gwadar,” he says. “There are no mountains all through the east and northern part of the village, it’s where the cyclones hit harder.”

“Though a number of houses had already fallen off in the previous coastal cyclones, there are houses under water now and houses with no boundary walls,” he adds.

In a conservative Baloch locality, every house — small or big, made of cement or mud — is surrounded by boundary walls. It is a cultural symbol of honor and protection. But many, like Abdul Jabbar, cannot afford to rebuild these walls.

Immediately after the disaster, the Alkhidmat Foundation, a local nonprofit organization, surveyed the area. According to their data, most people demanded boundary walls before any other aid. “As we reported the survey analysis to our head office, we received 200,000 rupees [roughly $1,300] for providing temporary boundary walls made out of bamboo wood and fabric,” says Nadil Ali, the president of the Alkhidmat Foundation in Gwadar district.