Floods — worse still to come?

The worst floods to hit Pakistan in over 80 years have left behind a trail of misery and havoc. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa alone over 1,000 people are now believed to be dead, according to provincial authorities. Many others are missing. In some remote valleys, such as Alpuri in Shangla, close to 200 lives have been lost with dozens more missing. And with this immense grief, there is now also anger. And in most cases this anger is justified given the government's generally abysmal response to the situation. People in Malakand, the worst affected area, where victims have perched precariously on roof-tops for days, ask why they were not warned in advance. Their question is a pertinent one. The ability to forecast weather should be used primarily as a means to safeguard people who may lie in the path of peril. There is no point in restricting findings to laboratories or to weather charts displayed on computer screens.

We wonder too what the National Disaster Management Authority has been doing. Surely, the primary role of the body, set up in the wake of the frightful devastation left behind by the October 2005 quake, should be to ward off the mayhem caused by natural calamity. There is after all limited purpose to be solved by flying over flood-hit areas after the event or issuing statements about measures taken to assist people, as the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in KP has been doing. These, sadly, can never be enough given the scale of the disaster. To make things worse people also complain aid delivery has been inefficient and the camps set up for people inadequate to meet their needs. The sight of victims in Swat scrambling for food packages and water thrown down from helicopters is not a pretty one. These people deserve better.

Specifically in the Malakand area and also other parts of KP, there is an added need for sensitivity. These areas have in recent months been caught up in insurgency. People have suffered gravely. Even now anger against the government persists. The revived sense of agony caused by the floods will only heighten feelings directed against authorities and could  lead to the further disenchantment of people opening the way for recruitment by the radical elements still at work in these parts.

Elsewhere too we have reports of disease breaking out. Even in the more accessible areas such as those around Rawalpindi fears have been voiced about the possible outbreak of dengue fever. There have already been complaints of diarrhoea among children. This is a situation that could deteriorate rapidly. Quite obviously urgent steps are required to ensure this does not happen. Things are bad enough now. There is however a real danger that they could worsen. Predictions have been made of more rain in the coming days over parts of the Punjab. These would of course add to the grim situation already present in the west and south of the province. We wonder what measures, if any, are being taken to avert this and safeguard lives and property.

Meanwhile as the high waters in rivers flow down to Sindh a discharge of around one million cusecs is expected. The irrigation department of the province has said it will be able to cope with this volume of water. Plans are also on to evacuate people living along the rivers. The government has dispatched troops to the kacha area but the irrigation minister was interviewed two days ago and despite being told that a flood of around a million was to hit the province he sounded confident that all will be fine. One can only wonder at such optimism given that claims by officialdom prior to disasters usually fall flat. At the very least, Sindh should order a mandatory evacuation along the river of all residents. What it will need to do, to convince these residents to leave their homes, is to provide them accommodation and food for quite some time before they can return and assess the damage that the high waters would have caused.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 3^rd, 2010.