Karachi, Pakistan—Every year in the slums of the port city of Karachi, Murta Zafsane sees monsoon rain rushing home and damaging furniture, televisions and other valuable valuables. And its neighbor.
So Hussein supported much of the same, especially when heavy monsoon rains began to soak Karachi earlier this month: water was poured into his house. A flood struck his neighborhood. At least one of his neighbors was drowned.
“It took nearly two days to clean the water and get the house back to normal. There was no government support,” said Hussein, 45, who works at a textile mill. “Every year, the government says there will be no floods, but the problem is getting worse.”
Every year, Pakistan struggles to cope with the monsoon season. The monsoon season hits the country from June to August, causing widespread criticism of inadequate government planning.
But this season is particularly cruel, and in times of global warming, extreme weather events are becoming more and more standard throughout the region, and major Pakistani cities have terrible equipment to handle them. Urgently reminds me that is not in place. ..
Monsoon rains have killed at least 282 people in the last five weeks, many of them women and children. Announced by the National Disaster Management Bureau On thursday. The deluge also damaged critical infrastructure such as highways and bridges, as well as about 5,600 homes, officials said.
Pakistan has long been ranked as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world. According to the Global Climate Risk IndexTrack catastrophic human and economic sacrifices in extreme weather.It is estimated that the country has lost and suffered nearly 10,000 lives in climate-related disasters. About $ 4 billion Losses occurred between 1998 and 2018.
According to experts, there are already signs that climate-related devastation will worsen in the coming years. According to Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman, who linked the new weather pattern to climate change, this year’s rains are 87 percent heavier than the average heavy rain.
She warned that the country needs to be prepared for further floods and damage to infrastructure as glaciers continue to melt at an accelerating pace, causing flash floods.
“This is a national disaster,” Lehman said at a press conference this month.
Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, experienced record rainfall just two years ago. According to Sindh Prime Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, this month’s monsoon rains set another record. If this trend continues, alarming questions have been asked about how the country’s economic hub can survive.
The flood turned the arterial road into a river. The house is filled with sewage spouting from the manhole. Electricity is turned off for hours or days to prevent exposed wires from coming into contact with water on the road or electrocuting people. According to the state’s disaster agency, the devastation caused the port city to stagnate for several days, killing at least 31 people, many of whom were electrocuted or drowned after the roofs and walls collapsed.
The devastation also sparked public protests against the lack of government readiness to deal with urban floods.
Even before the rain floods Karachi, the city is already in turmoil, roads collapse, slums expand and the basic government provides Pakistan with about 40% of its income. I was robbed of service. But even in the wealthier areas of the city, the rain caused havoc, with a comparative advantage of services.
Karachi’s administrator, Murtaza Wahab, said the city had old drainage and sewerage infrastructure that couldn’t cope with heavy rains, and acknowledged the importance of renewal. But he said the city was in better shape this year than it was in 2020, as the government began cleaning up clogged drains in advance and built several new drains.
Fazal Ali, an accountant at the Defense Housing Bureau, a military-managed housing association, was forced to leave the house this month and move to a private hotel after the floods broke the main gate of the house and submerged it.
“Every time a car passed through our house, a wave of water spewed into the house,” Ali said, adding that flash floods two years ago also broke the iron gates. “The government has not learned any lessons from past disasters.”
Rainwater also flooded the business districts of large cities with most wholesale markets for goods and garments, costing traders billions of rupees.
Hakeem Shah, leader of Karachi traders, said:
“It was the complete incompetence of the government,” he added. “Now the government needs to compensate traders who are already suffering from inflation.”
The flood will occur just two years after another devastating monsoon season struck Karachi in August 2020, killing more than 40 people and hitting the economy already suffering from the coronavirus pandemic.
After the monsoon season, it took several weeks to repair the flood damage. It also caused a psychological blow to the inhabitants who were afraid that the city would stop again even on a normal rainy day.
The serious damage caused by these floods and the subsequent protests in Karachi have led government officials to take steps to buffer the city against the annual monsoon.
The then Prime Minister, Imran Khan, announced a financial package of about $ 14 million to repair the chronic infrastructure problems in Karachi. Thousands of temporary housing and vendor stalls near the drainage system have been demolished. The provincial government has launched a campaign to clear the drainage of the garbage pile.
But two years later, it hasn’t changed much.
“I’m not accountable,” said Amber Danes, a social activist living in Karachi.
After the floods began in Karachi this month, former Karachi mayor Washim Aktar accused the state authorities of controlling the city’s local government.
“People in Karachi pay billions of taxes to the government, but every time it rains, Karachi gets confused,” Aktar said at a news conference. “Where is all the money the state government gets from the federal government?”
However, Prime Minister Shah blamed the severity of the rain.
“The state government managed the situation in the best possible way,” Shah said at a press conference on July 12.
Most analysts blame the combination of factors for the increased devastation of the Pakistani monsoon. Climate change is causing heavy rains, showing that government officials are incompetent and unable to adjust, and sporadic city planning makes major cities particularly vulnerable.
Coordination between Pakistani city, state and national governments is often run by various political parties with little incentive to cooperate, but virtually none. In the case of Karachi, local voters tend to dominate state polls. In short, the city’s urban predicament has little political impact on state leaders.
And Karachi itself is a puzzle of overlapping administrative territories, where civilian and military administrations often intersect in a confusing way.
Jumaina Sidiki, Senior Program Officer in South Asia, said: American Peace Institute.
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the city are left to protect themselves in the increasingly cruel rain.
This month in Karachi, Denmark, a carpenter using one name was riding a motorcycle when his wife and two children fell into an open drain after a heavy rain submerged the road. He said the inhabitants managed to rescue him and his three-year-old daughter, but his wife and two-year-old drowned.
“It wasn’t rain that killed my wife and children,” said the Danes. “It was the incompetence of the government and the helplessness of the people.”