Stories
Stories from the Indus plain
Longer reads on the river, the barrage, the flood, the power station, and the voice of the south. Every fact is sourced.
Short, sourced pieces about how this place works and what it remembers. Figures come from the sources listed under each story; where sources disagree, the story says so.
History · 2 min read
August 2010: when the Indus came over the bund
The biggest flood ever recorded at Taunsa broke the embankment upstream of the barrage and poured into Kot Addu. What happened, from the official record.
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History · 1 min read
Taunsa Barrage: the gate on the river
Sixty-five gates across the Indus turned flood-fed land into canal country. How the barrage was built, what it feeds, and how it has been kept standing.
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Industry · 1 min read
The power station on the river
KAPCO was built by WAPDA, sold in Pakistan's landmark 1996 power privatisation, and went quiet when its contract ran out. In 2025 it came back.
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People · 1 min read
The voice of the Saraiki south: Pathanay Khan
Born Ghulam Muhammad near Kot Addu, he sang the kafis of Khwaja Ghulam Farid until they became the sound of the south. He is buried in the town.
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Culture · 2 min read
The shrine of Din Panah
A blue-tiled tomb north of Kot Addu, a foundling saint claimed by both banks of the Indus, and a century of pilgrims — from the district gazetteers.
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History · 2 min read
Kot Addu Junction
The railway reached Kot Addu in the 1880s. Eighty years later a bridge across Taunsa Barrage made the town a junction on the route from Karachi to Peshawar.
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Industry · 2 min read
Mangoes, citrus and cane
Two canals and two very large sugar mills shape the fields around Kot Addu. The official figures — and what the heat is doing to the mangoes.
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