As Pakistan suffers the worst floods in its history, one of the oldest preserved human settlements in the world has suffered major damage from excessive rain.Moenjodaro, also spelled Mohenjo-daro, is a World Heritage site located 508 kilometers (316 miles) from Karachi in the Indus River Valley. It was constructed in the Bronze Age, some 5,000 years ago.In a letter to UNESCO from the Cultural, Tourism, & Antiquities Department of Singh state, curator Ihsan Ali Abbasi and architect Naveed Ahmed Sangah signed, they claim, "Unfortunately we observed the mass damage of the site."
According to the letter, nearby individuals whose homes had flooded were using the facility as temporary housing.For humanitarian reasons, we provided them with sanctuary in our offices, parking lots, retail spaces, and the museum's ground floor, according to the letter.Due to monsoon rains and water from melting glaciers, an estimated third of Pakistan is currently under water.
The majority of Moenjodaro's structures, which were found in the 1920s, are above ground and vulnerable to environmental harm. Collapsed brick walls and mud-covered ground are depicted in images from the letter from the site's guardians.The letter details some of the quick measures the site team has taken to lessen flood damage, including installing water pumps, mending brickwork, and clearing drains.
These steps, however, will obviously fall short.Abbasi and Sangah request $45 million in Pakistani rupees as their final request in their letter, which totals 100 million rupees.Regrettably, flooding has been a severe risk to Moenjodaro for a while, and this knowledge has been known to the site's conservators.A breach of the dam upstream would result in catastrophic devastation, according to the official UNESCO listing, which states that Singh state, which is responsible for managing Moenjodaro, has already raised the concern.
It is impossible to overstate Moenjodaro's importance as a historical and architectural site. Moenjodaro, which is the "most ancient planned city on the Indian subcontinent," "bears exceptional testimony to the Indus civilization," according to UNESCO, which added it to its register in 1980.The city was a busy metropolis in its prime. There were marketplaces, public restrooms, a sewage system, and a Buddhist stupa made primarily of brick that had been baked in the sun.
Abbasi and Sangah express concern in their letter that Moenjodaro might be added to the list of UNESCO sites in danger, which the preservation organization updates on a regular basis to highlight historical sites that are in grave danger of disintegrating.Sites that are currently on this list include Liverpool, England, whose historic city center is seen to be at risk from urbanization, as well as Florida's Everglades National Park, which is dealing with serious environmental issues.
References
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