Kartarpur Gurdwara Inundated & Cleaned; Major Floods in Pakistan (West) Panjab

On 27 Aug, a breach in the river Ravi’s embankment in Narowal, Panjab, Pakistan caused severe flooding, inundating the Kartarpur Sahib complex associated with the first Sikh sovereign Guru Nanak. Gurdwara Darbar Sahib was flooded with water levels reaching 5-6 feet. This affected daily prayers and religious activities. The West Panjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif asked her team to clean the Gurdwara and all the water was drained out within a day. Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee head and minister for Minorities Ramesh Singh Arora thanked the Pakistan Prime Minister, (West) Panjab CM, and the Chief of Army Staff for the service that Pakistan Rangers performed in cleaning the Gurdwara. He said, 'We have been asking India to send pilgrims (stopped since May 2025) but the Modi government sent 250K cusecs of water.' Services have resumed at the Gurdwara. The monsoon season has caused severe flooding in Pakistan killing at least 706 people and affecting over 1.4K villages. Pakistani authorities have evacuated more than a million people from homes in Panjab province. Torrential rain and India's release of excess water from its dams swelled rivers Chenab, Ravi, and Satluj that flow into (West) Panjab. In April, India had placed the 60-year-old Indus Water Treaty in abeyance over the  terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir. The idea was that India would create a drought in Pakistan. However, the monsoons have shown that India cannot stop river waters. In fact, India passed on three flood warnings to Pakistan this week. On 27 Aug, two of the 54 gates of the Madhopur barrage, located downstream of the Ranjit Sagar Dam on river Ravi, gave way after heavy rains. The barrage, first built in the 19^th century and rebuilt in 1959. This led to river Ravi carrying 14M cusecs of water, its highest ever. Rivers have their own memory and cannot be bound by political and national ideology (earlier coverage).