Not much by way of preventive measures rankles
Floods in Pakistan continue to ravage vast swathes of land. Deaths have been reported and people’s lives and properties have been devastated on a sizable scale. Quite unlike other natural disasters, floods are fairly predictable. However, the lack of any meaningful preventive measures and subsequent relief effort on the part of the government is indeed disappointing. This being the third flood in five years, the state of preparedness should have been far better. But it is not. People living in far off villages only expect from the government timely warning and rescue to minimize damage to their lives and property and relief and rehabilitation in due course post-floods. But seeing that people have been left on their own does not speak well of the government’s disaster management capabilities.
The Met department has predicted that the current spell of rain would continue for at least one more day, with yet another cycle expected in the next week. Along with the villages in catchment areas, particularly those near rivers, tributaries, riverines and nullahs, now the urban areas of the country are also under the threat – in some cases severe, as the soil surface has saturated and cannot absorb more water. Around 500 villages have already been inundated by the Indus, Chenab and Sutlej. The release of 114,000 cusecs of water in the river Sutlej by India has only exacerbated an already bad situation as it has reached Kasur. With four more people reported dead because of floods the other day, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has asked his younger sibling, Shahbaz Sharif, to step up efforts in the Punjab. Meanwhile, the National Disaster Management Authority chief is in Chitral overseeing relief work. The government seemingly scrambling now to mitigate some of the losses the floods have caused should have been more proactive earlier, with an action plan to follow through in the first place. Instead it is the same old routine: when floods happen, we cry ourselves hoarse instead of taking any precautionary measures even though the Met department in this day and age can predict weather patterns fairly accurately. Simple, cost effective ideas can in fact help in handling the excessive flood water, at least in a way that it does not reach densely populated areas or avoid damage to crops. All it takes is strategically built embankments, levees and mounds to steer water away from populated areas and into dams or even into deserted areas.
Floods are now a pretty frequent event in this part of the world, yet all federal and provincial authorities fail to deal with it, every single time. Even if we say that the floods are a force of nature, putting the lives and property of the people at risk by not taking any precautionary measures is definitely the government’s fault. What the country needs is to turn this natural disaster into a useful natural resource. By implementing a comprehensive action plan, which on the one hand steers away flood water from populated areas and on the other stores it in dams or water channels to be used during dry spells, the government can deal with it while keeping losses to a bare minimum.
Thanks a lot for sharing this. This is very informative and very interesting. Since flooding is very frequent in this part of the world, I guess we can prevent it by building dams, flood controls and walls. There are a lot of preventive things we can do if we put our resources into good use. People living in the flood-prone area should also cooperate.
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