Floods in Pakistan have struck again. The main problem of so many people being a victim of these floods is poverty prevalent in the backward areas of the county. It not only forces administrators to choose between meeting immediate needs and spending resources on future catastrophes, it also puts the most vulnerable people in harm’s way. Poverty is the enemy of preparedness. Poverty forces people to choose riskier options in life, such as living in remote or dangerous areas, because they tend to be cheaper. As a consequence, millions of poor Pakistanis live near the Indus River and its tributaries, whose risk of flooding creates an alley of poverty along its banks.
The floods in Pakistan have created an acute crisis, displacing some 20 million people, flooding agricultural fields, sweeping away roads, bridges, and buildings, and killing large numbers of livestock. Recovering from it will be a long-term struggle, and solid commitment is needed for effective rebuilding. The poor have only weak rights to the land in Pakistan. Their wealth is concentrated not in the land, but in their livestock, many of which perished in the flood. Exacerbating the problem of recovery is that the social protection system is weak and few households have people engaged in diverse occupations that could provide support while agriculture recovers.
Efforts to mitigate future natural disasters tend to go through a flurry of activity immediately after a calamity but then peter out. Pakistan once had an advanced water management and irrigation system. But in recent decades, investment has declined, leaving it outdated and strained by demands for water and electricity.
Because of frequent droughts and electricity shortages, Pakistan’s water managers must walk on a knife’s edge in handling storage in the nation’s few dams. Rather than drawing down the water level in advance of monsoon rains to allow for flood mitigation, they must keep reservoirs nearly full to provide water both for electricity generation and as a cushion for irrigation in the dry months in case the monsoons are weak. That means during heavy monsoons like last summer’s, the reservoirs have very little capacity to stop flood waters from flowing downstream.
Each year monsoon rains come to Pakistan, but what has changed over time is the people; how they’re distributed, and how the government makes choices to manage population and water. Crowding, not nature, has made natural disasters more deadly. In the 20th century, there were six earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people. In the first decade of the 21st century there have already been four earthquakes that deadly. The increased death toll is not because we’re seeing more earthquakes, but because people are living in more marginal conditions.
On the positive side human populations are very resilient and. People are hardworking, self-reliant, and don’t expect the cavalry to come riding over the hill for them. The focus on recovery must not waver. Because future events like this are not only possible, they’re likely.
AQDAS FATIMA
Islamabad
