Emergency

The country stands devastated due to the heavy rains and floods that have ravaged through most cities, towns, villages across all provinces. From Sindh to Balochistan to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to southern Punjab, more than 30 million people have been affected. This is no ordinary number. It means that around 15 per cent of Pakistan’s population has been directly affected by this unprecedented natural calamity. The visuals coming out of the flood-affected areas are gut-wrenching: hapless people stranded, appealing for help as tragedy surrounds them. There are many areas that are not even accessible for rescue efforts due to the dire weather conditions. Pakistan has declared the situation as a national emergency and called on the international community to help with the relief operations. As the season is going to last till September, there is an urgent need for international help from countries and non-government organizations. Unfortunately, during the past years successive governments in Pakistan made many NGOs including international welfare and development organizations uncomfortable by demanding repeated registration and reregistration by various agencies and bodies in Pakistan. The government has now relaxed some requirements of clearance but the damage has been done.

Sindh and Balochistan have seen more than 400 per cent rain than the last 30-year average. The scale of devastation is unimaginable and the consequences even worse. More than 900 people have so far died, and these are just conservative official numbers. Millions of people have lost their livelihoods. Crops have been washed away while the loss of livestock means most of these people have lost everything – their houses, their savings, their means to live, some even their families. The recent floods have also proved how illegal construction around river beds leads to further loss of lives and hinders rescue efforts. Pakistan may also face a crippling food shortage in the coming months as crops have been destroyed. How the government copes in the coming months and provides relief to millions of people who are left with nothing remains to be seen. It will no doubt take a mammoth effort. There is an immediate need to identify vulnerable communities at risk so that they can move to safer locations. These risks are not new and there should have been mitigation mechanisms already in place. But as always the response from the concerned authorities is too little and too late.

Climate change has wreaked havoc in this part of the world. According to a 2021 World Bank report on climate change, “Pakistan faces some of the highest disaster risk levels in the world, ranked 18 out of 191 countries by the 2020 Inform Risk Index…Pakistan also has high exposure to flooding (ranked jointly 8th), including, riverine, flash, and coastal, as well as some exposure to tropical cyclones and their associated hazards (ranked jointly 40th) and drought (ranked jointly 43rd). Disaster risk in Pakistan is also driven by its social vulnerability.” The political section has slowly woken up to the realities of the current situation in the country. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Sindh yesterday along with Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto to oversee the rescue and relief operations. Former prime minister Imran Khan visited Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s flood-affected areas. By most accounts, this is even worse than the 2010 floods, the stories of devastation unlike ever before. Those who have been affected don’t just deserve media headlines but a concerted national effort for their relief and rehabilitation process. It will take years to rebuild their lives, and that too after the government and the public come together. Things have already been delayed far too long. The only plan to rescue our own is to act now; there can be no plan B here.