Bracing for the rains

According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, most of Pakistan has experienced either near normal or below normal rainfall in the month of June. For a country that battles urban flooding and increased fatalities during the monsoon season every year, this should've been a major relief. But despite lower averages, 126 people tragically lost their lives due to heavy rains in just a single week towards the end of July. Whether this implicates the country's capacity for dealing with natural disasters is a question the government will once again evade.

The National Disaster Management Authority has already issued warnings about rising water levels in the Indus River and its tributaries. It has already strictly warned against unnecessarily travel to these regions during these days, with a blanket ban on tourism to Lake Saiful Muluk for the time being. This shows that precautionary measures are being taken by disaster management and weather authorities, but the question is: are they enough to deal with the monster that is urban flooding in Pakistan?

Several major cities have been flagged for urban flooding, including Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan and Hyderabad. Karachi, a city that is brought to a halt after heavy rains, has also received a warning for flash floods. These warnings are not the result of increased rainfall and unprecedented circumstances; they are simply the result of a system that is reliably weak and inadequate.

As the country plunges into August - sometimes the most intense recipient of heavy rains in the country - we can only hope that the state's preparations prove to be sufficient. There is only grief for those who have already lost their lives, but proactive decisions as well as disaster mitigation infrastructure can surely prevent further fatalities.