“This is not God’s fury to punish sinners;

we are the culprits and inaction is our sin.”

- Dr Sana Khosa,
(Assistant Professor at Humanities and
Social Science Department.)

Pakistan is vulnerable to most natural hazards. It is prone to:

 Floods

NDMA Reports, 2005 to 2021 there have been 7,90,000 deaths and over 4,00,000 house are
affected.
1950 – 2900 deaths – 09 Lakh people homeless – 01 Lakh houses affected
1992 – 3010 deaths
2010 – 1600 deaths – 20 million people affected
2022 – 1700 deaths – 33 million people affected – 08 Lakh Houses affected – 30 billion loss
– 2% GDP loss – 70% Staple food wasted – 45% Land washed away – 518% more rain than
average – 118 districts affected, 84 hard hit. WHO warns against 2.5 to 4% increase in
Poverty.

 Earthquakes

1974 – Hunza – 6.2 Richter scale – 5300 People died – 17000 Injured – 97000 People
affected
2005 – Kashmir – 7.6 Richter scale – 73000 People died – 3.3 million became homeless

 Droughts

2000 – Baluchistan – 100 Deaths – 1.2 million affected

 Cyclone storms

2007 – Costal Areas Balochistan, Sindh, KPK – Yemyin Cyclone – 380 deaths – 3.5
Displacements.

 Famines
 Heavy monsoons
 And let’s not forget the other kinds of disasters that its inhabitants inflict upon each other — the
scourge of terrorism.
 Displacement

2008-2010 – IDPs Crisis – the then FATA Region – 4.2 million people displaced

Pakistan is increasingly exposed and vulnerable to various

natural hazards, particularly floods, cyclones, droughts and
earthquakes. Combined with these vulnerabilities, disasters have
caused significant loss of life, economic damage and reversal of
development gains over the past 15 years.

- ‘South Asia Climate Change Action Plan 2021-25’

report by WORLD BANK

M Essa Channa 2022

  Accidental Disasters

Factory: 2015, Lahore factory disaster. Karachi, Baldia factory incident, 264 deaths.

Aircrash: 2010, Airblue Airline 202 Flight – 152 deaths. 2012, Bhoja Air flight – bad
weather – 127 deaths.

Train Collison: 2005, Ghotki – 3 trains collided – 100 deaths – 1000 Injuries – Signal
Malfunction. 2007, derailment – 40 died. 2019, Teagam fire incident – 75 died – 43 Injured.
2021, Ghotki Rail Crash.

Though the most recent flooding is different in nature compared to the one in 2010 — the latter was
a flash flood while the current is a riverine flood — in both cases, it can be argued that the damage caused
by both disasters is the outcome of changes in demography as well as ill-advised development policies
across Pakistan.

EFFECTS:
Some of the more immediate outcomes of the latest disaster will be felt in the form of

 Displacement
 Rise in illiteracy
 Unemployment

The World Bank has said that

climate change and natural disasters pose a major challenge to
Pakistan’s development, and an estimated 49 million people
reside in areas that face the risk of a four-to-five per cent decline
in quality of life by 2030.

 Health crises
 Water and food scarcity

“In the 2022 Global Hunger Index, Pakistan ranks 99th out of the
121 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2022 GHI scores.
With a score of 26.1, Pakistan has a level of hunger that is
serious”.
- Global Hunger Index 2022

 Infrastructure damages
2000 Health Facilitation Centres, 5000Km Road network and 250
bridges have been destroyed blemished and affected in 2022
floods, says NDMA
 Loss of human lives
 Destruction of crops
 Livestock losses
 Water-borne diseases
“10 million children are affected from diseases caused by 2022 floods”. - UN

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  Outward migration to cities
 Loss of social capital
“Housing; Agriculture and Livestock; and Transport and
Communications sectors suffered the most significant damage, at
USD 5.6 billion, USD 3.7 billion, and USD 3.3 billion,
respectively.”
– THE WORLD BANK

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:

“Climate is always evolving, and natural disaster have always existed.”

- Marco Rubio

According to the Federal Flood Commission, Pakistan has witnessed 28 super riverine floods in its 75-year
history:

 2005 earthquake, impacted 3.5 million people. Media reports

following the earthquake put the death toll anywhere between
87,000 (19,000) Children) and over 100,000. Another 138,000 were
injured and over 3.5 million rendered homeless.
 2010 floods affected more than 20 million people (2022 floods are
almost déjà vu)
 2008 - 2010 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) crisis. This was
triggered by an internal conflict and displaced almost 4.2 million
people from the then FATA.

This is what we must heed, lest history continues to repeat itself.

“Whatever disaster befalls you,

is because of your own hands have earned.
And He pardons much”.
- Surah Ash Shura 42:30

SOLUTIONS:

“Nobody can stop natural disaster, we are the cause and we are the remedy”.
- Santosh Kalwar

Prevention, Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and Recovery.

To mitigate the ongoing disaster of floods in Pakistan, the following steps must be taken on a war footing, as
disaster response is all about timely action:

 Disaster management is more about preparedness than response.

"It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark”.
- Howard Ruff, author of financial planning books.

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 A response-centric approach to disaster management is not the answer.
A shift in paradigm is needed from a reactive to a proactive mode of disaster management to alleviate the
sufferings of the community.

“We cannot stop natural disasters but we can arm ourselves with knowledge: so many lives wouldn't
have to be lost if there was enough disaster preparedness”.
- Petra Nemcova

 In the floods of 1973, the administrative apparatus was agile and responded efficiently to the catastrophe. In
the 2005 earthquake and the 2010 floods, civil society played an instrumental role. For genuine and not-so-
genuine reasons, by 2022, both the arms of the disaster management regime have lost their zeal. It’s
necessary to provide the humanitarian sector enough autonomous space so it can play its due role.
 Meanwhile, the NDMA needs to facilitate respective PDMAs for a comprehensive, compact, composite and
a consented rehabilitation plan
 If an administrative unit does not have the required assets (as we saw this year in the deadly fire incident in a
Dadu village), it needs to have MoUs with neighbouring districts so when a threat is imminent
institutional help, without red tape, can arrive in time.
 Bear in mind that the water flowing through the Indus cannot be called a ‘flood’ as it takes a natural
course and is, indeed, a blessing rather than a disaster; foresters call it inundation, instead. In 2010, the river
flow was 1.1 million cusecs. Compared to 2010, the river flow in 2022 was 700,000 cusecs at Sukkur
Barrage and an unprecedented 900,000 cusecs at Kotri Barrage, as rainwater from both Sindh and
Balochistan had entered the Indus below Sukkur.

The Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) suggests,

“Pakistan shall focuse on integrated water resources
management to reduce flood risks and enhance food security
as adaptation priorities for the short term.”

 Role of Media:
The media’s convergence with disaster management efforts needs to be grounded in initiatives to inform
educate and empower communities with the relevant knowledge for influencing public action and policy
towards disaster preparedness and mitigation.

“Preparation through education is less costly than learning through tragedy”.

- Max Mayfield

 Foreign embassies need to be energised for targeted fund raising. They need to be made accountable against
the set targets
 All hazard mappings by various organisations need to be in the public domain.
 Market forces have the tendency to capitalise and make profits on a disaster and its destruction. The sudden
rise in prices of tents is a case in point. This vulture mindset needs to be reined in through legislation and
administrative measures
 Political will to empower local governments and local level implementation of DRR initiatives is also
lacking.
“Disasters are called natural, as if nature were the executioner and not the victim”.
- Eduardo Galeano

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 COMPARATIVE:

Infrastructure destruction figures provide a good sense of the long-term consequences of a catastrophe as we
have seen in events as varied as the Sumatra floods, the Indian floods, Haiti earthquake and the Iran
(Bam) Earthquake.

On 4 August 2020, a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut in the capital city of
Lebanon exploded, causing at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and US$15 billion in property damage, as
well as leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless.

Highest floods in Netherlands.

Highest earthquakes in Japan.

Volcanos in Pacific region – Indonesia.

ASSISTANCE:
“Rising sea levels, severe draughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating
natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief”.

- Leon Panetta

 Financing includes $475m loan and $3m technical assistance grant from ADB
 $5m grant from government of Japan.
 An initial funding of more than 200 million dollars will be made available to seven affected countries —
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Fiji, Ghana, the Philippines and Senegal — also called
PATHFINDER COUNTRIES - COP27
 11-member team of experts from China Meteorological Administration (CMA) has conducted the post-
disaster assessment work in Pakistan and decided to further reinforce cooperation with the Pakistan
Meteorological Department (PMD) for technical exchanges.

“There are disasters that are entirely manmade, but none that are entirely natural.”

- Rebecca Solnit

“OUR SEASON OF ROMANCE, RAINDROPS, WALKING IN THE RAIN, AND SINGING SONGS HAS BEEN TURNED
INTO A TERRIBLE NIGHTMARE”.

M Essa Channa 2022