ISLAMABAD – With the breaches in many embankments that were washed away in last year’s flood still un-repaired, the residents of the flood-hit areas are haunted by the threat of fresh deluge which could prove even more disastrous.
According to the Flood Reconstruction Plan 2010-11 of the Planning Commission of Pakistan, around 78 districts of the country covering 50,000 square kilometers were inundated last year, leaving 20 million affected and rendering 1.6 million homeless.
According to the report, agriculture and road networks were the worst affected. Crops spreading over 2 million hectares were destroyed in the floods per the report. Some independent sources, however, claimed 2 main reasons were the primary factors that caused the huge losses: Embankments were not breached properly to save the land of certain influential people.
No repair work had been done on the breaches for years before the flood.
According to the Damaged and Need Assessment (DNA) report, carried out by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the damages in agriculture sector account for 50 percent of the total losses of $10 billion.
Despite all the estimates, no major reconstruction work has been initiated so far, leaving the flood victims at a much greater risk than before.
“If the breaches in the embankments remain un-repaired, irrigation and infrastructure, which is vital to the sustainability of the rural economy, continues to be un-rehabilitated, a torrential rains which is being forecast will be more disastrous than that of the previous year when the embankments, either in good or bad condition were intact”, Muhammad Ali of Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum told Pakistan Today.
According to the Flood Reconstruction Plan, the government, keeping in view its financial constraints, opted for the less expensive DNA proposed plan which costs around $6.8 billion for reconstruction. “The UN and the NDMA plans are too late and the fear of rains is hanging like Damocles’s sword over the heads and breaches have not been repaired. Any sane man can estimate the damages which could take place in this situation,” Rao Ayub of Gurmani village in Muzzafargarh district said. He also added the government of Pakistan had already said the damages were epic.
Former chairman NDMA Lt General Nadeem Ahmed in his press conference a few days back had also stated that Pakistan’s government needed to be sanitized that Pakistan could not afford another flood.
