LAHORE – Meteorological Department officials on Thursday denied that floods could have been averted by using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) eight to ten days before prediction of the disaster.
According to Met officials, only huge water reservoirs could have minimised the damage caused by floods. Few days ago, Georgia Institute of Technology Earth and Atmospheric Science Professor Peter Webster claimed, “This disaster and flooding could have been minimised”. Last year’s floods affected 20 million people, destroyed millions of homes and damaged 5.4 million acres of land.
According to a news report of an international news agency, by using ECMWF data, Webster and his colleagues found out that floods could have been predicted earlier if the data “had been processed and fed into a hydrological model, which takes terrain into account.”
Flood Forecasting Division Lahore Director Muhammad Akram told Pakistan Today that damage could not be minimised by just predicting and huge water reservoirs are required to cope with floods. He questioned that where this European model was when the 100 year snowfall record was broken in European countries and worst floods hit Australia.
He said that China also faced intense floods and if the ECMWF had any prior information then it was their social responsibility to inform the Met Office.
Met Office Director Lahore Ajmal Shad said that it was an attempt to promote the European model and if the model was that much precise then all countries should have adopted it.
