Flood Disaster 2015 in Pakistan

BY ADMINISTRATOR JULY 24, 2015

Years of floods have taught us nothing. A human catastrophe is already underway in the Chitral valley as floods have swept away 40 link bridges and over 100 houses in the scenic valley. As torrential rain continued for a seventh day, more villages were hit by flash floods in the area. The government has declared the area to be calamity hit, with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif finally being able to reach the area, and announcing Rs1 billion in aid. Luckily, locals have migrated to safe places mitigating human casualties, but the failure of government departments to give an accurate estimate of the flood damage should be an indicator of the systemic failure of the state to plan for increased floods. The complete annihilation of roads and suspension bridges means that locals are unable to leave the area, with aid being delivered via army helicopters. While the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister’s office has claimed that schools are being converted into shelters, the deputy commissioner’s office seems to respond to the assertions with ignorance. There is no better proof of a complete communication breakdown in the response to the floods.

With both Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif away in Saudi Arabia when the flooding season began, it is clear that the priorities of the elected representatives of the country lie elsewhere. The directives to the National Disaster Management Authority to speed up relief and rescue efforts mean absolutely nothing when there has been no upgrading of disaster management and weather prediction systems. The bulk of the relief effort in Chitral has remained in the hands of the army, the civilian government for now sticking to promises of compensation. Punjab is set to experience high floods after a Met office warning that River Indus is in high flood at Taunsa Barrage and set to rise. There is still time for emergency measures to mitigate the flooding and pre-warn affected populations where the breaches in the dykes are likely to be made. In Layyah alone 223,000 people have been affected by the floods as dykes have washed away in Dera Ghazi Khan. A total of 244 villages in Punjab are said to have been affected. In terms of showing a complete absence of planning, the Punjab chief minister’s home city, Lahore, offers a glaring example – having been converted into a swamp by lunch time. That the drainage and sewerage system in the capital of Punjab choked after a few hours of rain shows that the priorities of the government are in delivering glossy infrastructure without any of the basic requirements of planning being met. With the level of water in the Hub Dam up by three feet and 15 people having drowned in the region, the next likely target of the floods is Sindh. The infrastructure in Karachi is so poor that 117 feeders tripped on Wednesday night after the first monsoon rain. Each year Pakistan faces floods. Each year they catch the administration by surprise. The governments are clearly not interested in safeguarding people from floods. And now the demand for security from floods may need to emerge more strongly from the people. With more thunderstorms on the way in Sindh, Bilawal Bhutto’s directives to the Sindh government to prepare for flooding will hardly mitigate the effects of decades of neglecting the country’s water infrastructure.