Pre-monsoon havoc

As expected, pre-monsoon rains in parts of Balochistan and K-P have brought with it thunderstorms and gusty winds that have caused much devastation. Houses have collapsed, crops and infrastructure destroyed, and hundreds of people left injured or dead. Floods have triggered landslides, swept away roads and uprooted electricity poles in affected areas. What is all the more horrifying is that the main monsoon rains are yet to hit as these showers were merely a foreshadow of the upcoming onslaught.

It must be stated explicitly that Pakistan is far from ready to face the horrific consequences of climate change and global warming. Even after multiple warning by scientists and environmentalists across the globe, authorities refuse to accept the enormity of the situation, partly because of naivety and partly out of sheer ignorance, and continue with business as usual. Provincial governments and disaster management authorities remain ill-equipped and lack basic understanding to deal with a global ecological crisis unleashing its wrath onto Pakistan. Pakistan must collectively wake up and realise that these rains are unprecedented and cannot be tackled with existing disaster mitigation measures that have become frivolous in the wake of the climate crisis. There is a desperate need for researchers, urban planners, administrators, environmentalists and all other stakeholders to come together to develop new mitigation mechanisms that account for new literature regarding monsoon rains under the overarching banner climate change.

Ideally, such a project should be divided into three major streams: immediate disaster management measures to protect vulnerable communities and affected areas; long-term solutions that help predict and manage a precarious future; and aggressive advocacy at the international level to curb carbon emissions worldwide. It is about time the government engaged with countries and organisations around the world. Pakistan continues to face the consequences of its own inept actions as well as of those countries responsible for exacerbating climate change.