One of the world’s oldest preserved human settlements – the World Heritage Site Moenjodaro – has been significantly damaged by torrential rain in Pakistan as the country battles the worst floods in its history.
image: Saqib Qayyum, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
… one of the oldest preserved human settlements in the world…
BOL News writes:
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, often spelled Mohenjo-daro, is a World Heritage site located 508 kilometers from Karachi in the Indus River Valley. It was constructed in the Bronze Age, around 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.”
The letter continues by stating that nearby individuals whose homes had flooded were using the location as temporary housing…
…The majority of the structures at Moenjodaro, which were found in the 1920s, are above ground and vulnerable to environmental harm. The letter from the site’s caretakers includes pictures that show crumbling brick walls…
In the letter, the site team describes some of the quick steps they took to lessen flood damage, including installing water pumps, fixing masonry, and cleaning drains.
Abbasi and Sangah ask for $45 million (100 million Pakistani rupees)… to cover the expense of comprehensive repairs.
Sadly, Moenjodaro’s conservators have been aware for some time that the site could be seriously endangered by flooding.
