By Tahreem Ashraf
Twenty-year-old Mujtaba Aftab witnessed his town falling apart at the seams. The catastrophic floods, starting from June to October, triggered by torrential monsoon rains ravaged Pakistan that devastated millions of people. Decimated roads, fields and gas stations submerged in water, collapsed brick structures, disintegrated mud-baked houses, and deaths due to waterborne diseases in Bhit Shah, located in the southeastern province of lower Sindh, left people without shelter, livelihood and hope. The poverty-stricken people, mostly daily wagers, are waiting for the water to recede so they can start rebuilding their houses, which would take months.
Almost 1,700 people were killed including 529 children, five million have become homeless and two million houses were severely damaged. Wide swaths of agricultural land washed away billions worth of crops in the four provinces of the country. Approximately, two million children are deprived of education and the stinging cold is another addition to the baggage of hardships for the displaced who are now seeking shelter from the treacherous winter.
Photo Courtesy of Social Union Bhit Shah
The vast scale disaster where sparked concerns about climate change also set off popular criticism over poor government planning and unpreparedness.
“There is no policy making in Pakistan, not just about basic infrastructure, but every field,” said Aftab, an aspiring student journalist and on the ground volunteer in his area.
Pakistan, for years, has been taking the rap for the mismanagement of water resources, lack of proper infrastructure, failed urban planning and inefficient climate risk assessment. Political instability is one of the cornerstones of this regression however, weak governance and inability to draw on the resources have exacerbated the ongoing crisis.
The province of Balochistan is a historically vulnerable region with little to no infrastructural development and neglected by the central government. The region beset by corruption and a long running insurgency was severely hit by the calamity which destroyed the already weakened framework and affected 75 percent of the province’s population.
“This (floods) happened in 2010 and this again happened now. There is no infrastructure, no proper sewage system, no proper homes were provided,” said Shireen Nayani, a Division of Health and Informatics officer at the People’s Primary Healthcare Initiative, Balochistan.
Nayani added that where flawed policies are an irrefutable factor, there is lack of preventive measures and management failure that further collapsed the province.
“The basic problem is they [flood affectees] don’t have basic facilities. They don’t have a heater in this cold weather,” she said. “The government is not providing anything to them. They are living in tents with their children and don’t even have blankets to cover themselves.”
Stagnant flood water and inadequate sanitation has led to vector borne diseases, millions are facing food insecurity and vulnerable groups are bearing the brunt of rising inflation and economic slump.
The government-led recovery and humanitarian response has provided food and agricultural assistance to 3.4 million people, distributed shelter and basic necessities to 43 percent in the most affected areas and only 29 percent of flood affectees have received medical assistance so far.
Photo Courtesy of Social Union Bhit Shah
Moreover, the U.N. agencies and countries including China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey also lent a helping hand to the drowning country. The United States has delivered $97 million in aid and the European Union announced $30 million to support the government relief efforts. Neverthless, as of December 16 Pakistan only received 26.7 percent of $817 million reported as required and the Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif demanded debt relief and compensation for climate damage at the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP27).
Pakistan contributes to less than 1 percent of the global carbon footprint but got the severest hit in recent history. However, there is also a lack of foresight and unpreparedness that has drowned more than half of the country.
The government has been successful in creating a narrative that acquitted them from the culpability of a failing infrastructure. Even though, in the past it has received critisicm over surplus development of white elephant projectsinstead of improving the existing infrastructure.
Source: Twitter
Pakistan has limited water storage capacity, and antiquated dams, 10 of them breached due to pressure from flash floods. Moreover, there is an obsolete drainage system intact. The large urban cities, towns and neighborhoods do not have proper channels that can guide the floodwater out of the urban development and this adds pressure on the sewerage lines. Most of the roads and railway tracks lack culverts and flawed land use planning have led to cities drowning due to urban flooding.
“There is no concrete measure in terms of investing in [climate change adapting] social infrastructure like drainage,” said Naveed Iftikhar, an urban economist. “We have been investing a lot of money on building roads and everything else and then we never paid much attention to how we are blocking the water channels.”
He further added that there are three facets of this issue: 1) The mushroom growth of unregulated housing societies have not only “divert the direction” of overflow channels but also blocked the waterways due to illegal construction. 2) There is lack of proper industrial and medical waste disposal due to which solid waste is dumped at the banks that chokes the water streams and during heavy rainfall the water remains stagnant. 3) The interconnected narrow sewerage and drainage lines, often in the same pipes, are unable to carry large amount of rainwater and “sewage lines are also often blocked”.
“Rainwater harvesting has never been on our agenda,” he said. “We don’t have very good green spaces which can absorb [rainwater] and there is also a tendency to cementify everything…we have cemented many paths and green belts, which help in absorbing water.”
Iftikhaar believes there is an immediate need for improved urban design and cohesiveness between federal and provincial governments for climate change adaptation and to prevent future disasters.
“The restructuring is not easily done. We don’t have resources to invest in pre-disaster scenarios, we are not resource lavish. We are living in a tight jacket economy where the economy is barely managing our needs,” said Faiz Hussain Shah, a climate expert.
According to Shah, a climate expert, Pakistan was not prepared because its flood prevention system is used to tackle riverine floods, where water would overflow from the river banks and spill out into low-lying southeastern land, but this year the changing pattern of “erratic weather system” resulted in urbanized flooding, water coming in from the southwest and penetrating the four provinces. He acknowledged that the systemic voids, that are a hindrance for crisis prevention, made urban areas extremely vulnerable.
“There are areas where development is not done according to plan,” he said. “We have not been able to assess risks [emanating from hazards] and make such strategies that prevent or mitigate disasters. We are low at preparation, early warning and response level. We are stuck up at relief and we do not have those resources to transition in recovery and reconstruction.”