National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Spokesman Ahmed Kamal told APP that natural disasters are unavoidable, but the damage from such tragedies can be reasonably lowered through formulating and keeping an effective and comprehensive strategy in place to address certain key area issues.
“Tree plantation, with proper replantation for every cutting tree at the same place, effective planning for land use, proper drainage system, constructing more reservoirs are the basic steps to reduce life and land losses due to natural disasters,” he said.
He said monsoon was a good opportunity for our country and if the water conservation strategy was adopted to save the water in ponds and dams, it would not only cater needs of the local areas, but also help prevent soil erosion.
He further remarked that competent persons should be placed at right places and accountability should be ensured to get the desired result or take action against those found guilty.
Kamal further informed that improvement in inter-provincial and inter-departmental coordination would also be imperative to check the losses of unpredictable disasters.
Commenting on the dust-storm which hit the twin cities on June 1, with the recorded intensity of 150 kilometre per hour, he stated that the dust storm was developed in Malakand, but it was aggravated in Rawalpindi and Islamabad due to urban heat.
He stated that Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has tracked the movement of the dust storm. If the department needed the latest equipment for prediction of disasters, it was a high time to update their technology, he added.