With around 500,000 cusecs of water flow reported at the Guddu and Sukkur barrages, the medium level flood in the Indus has already caused two breaches in dykes with a number of villages already having flooded. Villages in the Dera Ghazi Khan and Rahim Yar Khan areas now stand submerged under water. The flooding in the southern part of the River Indus has become a regular part of every rainy season for the past decade. However, the sheer cluelessness with which the provincial disaster management authority is operating would be comic if not for the serious risk to lives, livestock and crops that floods have brought in almost every year. With five consecutive years of flooding since 2010 one would have thought that by now some basic lessons would have been learned.But going by the experience of Chitral and Alipur and parts of Layyah in the past few days, it seems that no effort has been made to increase preparedness.Flash floods have devastated most of Chitral, and large parts of Alipur were submerged with locals having little to no warning about the impending disaster.It is too early to objectively assess the damage but even government officials are saying that “it could be a lot worse than it already appears to be”. Bridges have been hard hit with 240 — both large and small — washed out and nearly 400 houses destroyed or partially damaged. Food is reportedly in short supply as is potable water, and electricity supplies broken. Standing crops have been destroyed, livestock drowned. The valleys inhabited by the Kalash people have been utterly devastated. Disasters of this magnitude in such a remote place take years to recover from, perhaps a generation — and this is a disaster that was entirely predictable. Moreover, it is a disaster that can and in all probability will be repeated, if not next year then in succeeding years.Despite the passage of more than five years now, a model to accurately forecast river flows is only just getting ready for deployment as the monsoon season brings with it its first large-scale flooding. Unfortunately, the government insists on repeating the same mistake year after year: getting caught by surprise, then rushing to announce compensation after the floodwaters have already inflicted much damage.The out-of-country chief minister of Punjab held a large video conference on Monday but it appears to be too little too late. The much-touted water control infrastructure in our provinces is now running way past its design lifespan. Floods are also a real consequence of our inability to respond to a changing climate in a systematic manner.Once again the military has been called in to do what is necessary. Once again they will help evacuate entire villages, move people to safer places, and lend a valuable hand with reconstruction when the water begins to recede. Initially such assistance was welcomed. But since the government bureaucracy simply refuses to budge from its long slumber – despite sitting on ample funds to deal with just such situations – and the is military pretty occupied with wars and threats, surely it is unfair, inopportune and unfeasible to continue falling back on the army.Natural calamities are going to be a feature of life and death in Pakistan for as long as the state endures. At the very least, there needs to be a review of disaster preparedness mechanisms, preferably leading to the establishment of a single body responsible for disaster response.
pk.shafaqna.com
Flood again: How long Pakistan will depend upon military for natural calamities?
