As the Heat Dome Settles, Karachi Counts Its Water by the Handspan

KARACHI — The taps have run for a full month now, and the city still does not quite believe it. When the first units of the Makran desalination corridor delivered continuous pressure to eastern Karachi in early July, ending eleven weeks of scheduled cutoffs, hydrologists warned the margin was thin. This week the warning met its test: as one heat dome lifted off the American Southwest, another bore down across South Asia, driving the northern summer to its hottest stretch and every household's demand to its highest — cooling, drinking, the desperate arithmetic of a body at forty-six degrees. The corridor held. Barely. "We measure the reserve now by the handspan on the tank wall, not the day," said municipal engineer Sana Iqbal, showing where the water sits against a painted gauge. "It has not run dry. It has also not once been comfortable." The alternating-district schedule remains for the interior, and relief workers say the standpipe disputes that turned violent in June have not returned only because the taps, so far, have not stopped. A city of millions is living through the hardest week of the year on infrastructure that was an emergency six months ago and is a lifeline now. "One dry season from disaster, still," Iqbal said. "But this week, in this heat, it held. Write that down. It held."