The recent heavy rains have inundated 13 villages and destroyed standing seasonal crops on hundreds of acres of land near Bajwat and Chaprar in Sialkot due to floods in Chenab and its tributary, Tavi. In addition, five villages of Hafizabad were also inundated. Luckily, there were no reported flood-related casualties.
As of August 2, the website of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), quoting Pakistan Meteorological Department's summer monsoon outlook 2012, reveals that "there is a strong likelihood that total amount of precipitation......is +05 to +15 above normal of the long-term average. However, erratic spread of monsoon on temporal and spatial scale is likely to be a prevalent feature, as such the possibility of very heavy localised rains, at times resulting in flash flooding, may not be ruled out."
Given Pakistan's unique geographical context the NDMA's focus has been on floods, earthquakes, landslides, cyclones, droughts and Glacial Lake Outburst Floods. As is fairly well known, Pakistan is now particularly vulnerable to floods; the floods of 2010 and 2011 are a case in point. The NDMA plausibly argues: "Pakistan is experiencing a gradual shift in the monsoon pattern and the last twenty years' data has indicated that monsoon precipitation impact zones are gradually shifting 80 to 100 kilometers westwards of Indus and Kabul basins in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (PK) and Punjab from the traditional Kashmir catchment areas."
This national agency in a National Monsoon Contingency plan 2012 (July-September) forecast localised flooding and carried out research to identify latent vulnerabilities which include: (i) the 2010 floods led to pronounced changes in rivers morphology in northern regions particularly River Swat which accounts for erosion, widened spans and unregulated flows likely to cause humanitarian consequences even in moderate flood situations; (ii) detailed flood plains mapping covering the entire Indus river system, its tributaries and tertiary rivers, nullah is still to be done even though NDMA has identified such mapping as the way forward; (iii) deferred allocation of irrigation and flood infrastructure due to inadequate operation and maintenance funds in provincial budgets, and (iv) population pressures leading to encroachment on river flood plains.
Prime Minister Raja Parvez Ashraf chaired a meeting on 2nd July to review nation-wide preparedness for 2012 monsoon season and a detailed contingency plan was presented that included the release of funds to ensure that the country's preparedness for the monsoons was up to par. The planning assumed the worst case scenario and each provincial government in co-ordination with the NDMA came up with a plan to deal with its unique flood situation.
Punjab allocated 287 million rupees to strengthen the NDMA's Punjab chapter, allocated 2 billion rupees to strengthen embankments and 2 billion rupees for water and sanitation authority for effective management of urban sanitation, completion and restoration of all bunds after 2010 floods, removal of encroachments, vaccination of livestock, procurement of medicines and dewatering pumps, shifting of wheat stocks to safe places and desilting of 6000 kilometers of drains, including in Lai Nullah Rawalpindi.
The money thins allocated has turned out to be grossly insufficient as is evident and the challenges that remain are identified as early rehabilitation of main road link breaches, mitigation of hill torrent floods through construction of dams, timely and accurate information on river flows and provision of flash flood forecasting and early warning systems.
Sindh has formed district and taluka committees for risk management, evacuation, relief, transport, health, sanitation, food and hygiene, and undertook inventory of existing machinery for example bulldozers, tractors, dewatering machines, and mapping all resources including tents, mosquito nets etc. The challenges that remain are insufficient flood protection infrastructure on Indus river system, inadequate protective infrastructure, and deteriorating security situation in many monsoon-prone regions.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, however, implemented flood protection works including restoration of 2010 flood damaged infrastructure and the provincial DMA has not identified challenges though one may safely assume many continue to pose a tough challenge to federal and provincial governments' ability and capacity. Balochistan too has been facing many challenges including encroachments on flood plains, limited design capacity of critical road bridges, inadequate forecasting capacity, poor management of cross-border irrigation system and weak data management at district level.
The NDMA set up a system of countrywide monitoring of flood works with a request to India to issue advance warning in the eastern rivers, a 10-year flood management plan, flood communication cell established with Wapda tasked to ensure up-to-date flood telemetry, raising Mangla dam up to 1242 ft and rerouting floods to desert areas through Rainee canal in Thar desert at Guddu. A Pakistan army corps has been tasked to reinforce flood protective infrastructure in co-ordination with provincial irrigation departments.
The foregoing reveals that scarce federal and provincial resources remain the major reason behind the failure to implement identified contingency plans in letter and in spirit. However, critics may well argue, with a great degree of credibility, that the actual fault lies with the low priority given by both the federal and the provincial governments to flood mitigating measures.
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