LAHORE – Although the next monsoon season is still months away, but after the deadly floods last year aid workers and experts are warning that Pakistan is still unprepared for the worst, The Guardian said in a special report.
“Now is the time to build up Pakistan’s resilience to disaster,” said Neva Khan, director of Oxfam in Pakistan. “The cost of implementing safeguards pales in comparison to the damage to lives and property [that could be caused by the monsoon].” The monsoon season usually runs from July-September.
Last year, more than 20 million people in 78 districts were affected by the worst floods in living memory. Some 2.4m hectares of standing crops and about a third of the rice planted were destroyed while paddy yields dropped by 38 percent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Many of those affected are yet to fully recover. 80,000 displaced people in Sindh are still living in camps and settlements, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“I still do not have a properly built house; it was very difficult through the winter and now I am worried about rains later this year,” Muhammad Khan, a farmer in a village of Charsadda, said. Efforts to help those affected by the floods are continuing. More than 2.5 million people have benefited from the construction of almost 63,700 latrines. More than 921,000 families have received hygiene kits, and 6.6 million individuals have been reached with hygiene promotion activities, The Guardian quoted the figure provided by the OCHA.
The plight of people in areas where rain triggers flash floods and landslides has highlighted the need for disaster preparedness, according to the UN secretary general’s special representative for disaster risk reduction, Margareta Wahlstr
No preparation as moonsoon looms
