As global warming gains momentum, natural disasters will disrupt more of life and all that supports it but sensible preparations - their speed, relevance and adequacy - for facing disasters may contain the damage. What we see right now are huge gaps in all these areas - the inevitable consequences of decades of neglect.
Initial UN estimates of the losses suggest that this disaster was deadlier than the tsunami that hit Asia in 2004, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, and that in Haiti in 2010 put together. While the number of the dead and destroyed assets are rising, loss of cattle - bullocks among them being a vital farming 'gadget' - is yet unknown. Crop loss estimates signal severe food shortfall and tough days for all sub-sectors of the cotton-based industry.
Loss of infrastructure (schools, colleges, hospitals, utilities, roads, railway network, bridges, small dams and huge power stations suggests that, at today's cost, the repair bill will exceed $10bn; given its existing debt servicing load, besides getting this sum, Pakistan will need rescheduling of its total external debt to delay payments thereon by at least 5 years (assuming, of course, that during this period a responsible regime is in power).
Weather pundits claim that 'early' warnings were given. Great; but were they 'early' enough for organising preventive, rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts after the disaster unleashed its fury? Were the concerned state offices warned in time along with guidance on upgrading the protective structures, planning the rescue effort, assembling requisite manpower and the gadgetry there for?
While these questions require answers, all efforts reflected gaps in the requisite capabilities left behind by the previous regimes. The parties in power in the past can't push under the carpet their role in it, especially the fact that even the basic rescue disciplines - scouting and first-aid - were completely sidelined by our schools.
Can we pass on the full load of disaster rescue to the armed forces? What then is the rationale for the federal, provincial and district emergency services? Isn't it time we stopped using these outfits for providing low-income jobs to party well-wishers, and enhanced their capacity in terms of equipment and skills to deliver, and made scouting and first-aid training compulsory in schools and colleges?
With the state's credibility in doubt, courtesy the corruption therein and the British premier's claim about Pakistan 'exporting' terrorism, the state can't muster requisite support for the relief effort. To attract donations and conduct relief work with real-time reporting, we need an agency manned not just by retired judges, but planners, logistics experts, engineers, physicians, sociologists, teachers and auditors with a proven track record.
Although the world is in economic distress and unsure about our delivery capacity, on UN Secretary General's bidding it may help rebuild our mega infrastructure, but won't do so without a credible assessment of the damage, and our plans to re-build, including steps to limit losses from bigger future disasters. Fortunately, the government has delegated this task to the World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Not assigning this job to the bureaucracy (whose capability is portrayed by the present damage) was prudent. The lot that can't ensure even the up-keep of river embankments can hardly assess losses, design the rebuilding effort, or visualise building new and stronger infrastructure to withstand bigger future disasters. As for raising additional tax revenue, all measures presently being mooted, must have affected taxpayers' willing consent.
The proposed relief commission must be truly independent (of the government) and should prioritise repairing, at first, the key infrastructure to fairly expect the affected people to return to their homes; pushing people back into ruins could force them to die of starvation (not rain or flood), or storm cities and towns in revenge; to avoid this outcome, life must be made worth living in the affected peoples' own localities.
Fortunately, Pakistan has NGOs with global reputation for relief and rehabilitation work to inspire donors everywhere. The NGOs with a proven record on these counts can perform these tasks but have not yet become active, although all they need from the government would be transport facilities. Pakistan's ill-reputed road transport sector too has a chance to lift its image by helping in this endeavour.
Given their experience of the 2005 earthquake, NGOs are better placed to plan location- and problem-specific rehabilitation measures. Once the NGOs become active (which they must do now), the government must give them concessions in the import of medicines, medical equipment, essential nourishments for infants (most vulnerable to epidemics), cheap packed-food, and inputs for setting up temporary shelters on a mass scale.
The initial rehabilitation task should focus on rebuilding the basic infrastructure in villages - houses, shops, healthcare units, and providing agricultural gadgetry, seeds and fertilisers via loans on very soft terms - a task for the banks. The state must re-build streets leading to highways, water courses and river banks, to revive hope among the people to re-start the crucially important farming activities.
Last week, the Prime Minister said that this tragedy could have been averted had the Kala bagh Dam (KBD) been built, but insisted it would be built only "if there was political consensus" thereon. Impliedly, political expediency prevails over rationality in Pakistan's feudal democracy.
Not many had studied the forecasts about global warming: that 2010 is the warmest year since the 1850s due to excessive greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, courtesy flawed inventions; that since 1980, frequency of heat waves melting the glaciers has doubled, and mud slides and massive floods (and ultimate drift of all glaciers into the oceans) are inevitable, and require building more dams to limit devastation by flooding.
The fiery heat wave in Russia, floods in Pakistan, and heavy rains in China and Europe portray continued global warming. Beginning 1980, climatic changes and frequent natural disasters dictated improved weather forecasting to afford time for upgrading protective structures and disaster relief machinery. Instead, we diverted our energies to the endless Afghan conflict in particular.
To limit losses from gigantic mud slides and floods by controlling their flow, and to store water for the future, we must build not one but many dams. Pakistan's already killing external debt; perhaps; this lot wants a repeat of this tragedy.