EDITORIAL: Heavy rains in the first week of this month, double the average of the past 30 years, and early advent of the monsoon season have been playing havoc with lives and property. Since June 14, excessive monsoon rains have claimed at least 77 lives in rain-related disasters.
Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman warned at a press conference on Wednesday that this is only the beginning of above-normal monsoon season triggered by global warming, and emphasised the need for making policies and taking action to deal with climate change as part of the national narrative, raising awareness, as her ministry “was already doing”, to educate the public about the environment. She also urged the people to pay heed to weather advisories so as to prevent loss of lives and damage to properties.
True, extreme weather events produced by global warming are causing calamitous rains, floods and other catastrophes, but it is unfair to attribute all the death and destruction that has occurred in the last few weeks only to that phenomenon. Part of the problem is also bad governance. Like at present, the authorities concerned get active only after disasters strike, directing rescue efforts and offering sympathies to those at the receiving end of their neglectful policies. It is not accidental that the heaviest losses of life occurred around rivers or nullahs.
In Balochistan where 39 people died and 35 others were injured, those familiar with the lay of the land point out that most of these people lived in houses near poorly built river dams, which gave way to surging rain waters. And in Punjab’s Rawalpindi city, the Lai Nullah, once a freshwater stream rising in Islamabad, which carries down below the capital city’s rainwater as well some of its junk, also claimed several lives because its banks have been encroached upon by all sorts of people.
In a tragic incident last Wednesday, a man drowned in it while trying to save three children. In a similar incident before that, another man drowned in Islamabad’s Korang Nullah in an attempt to rescue four children, fortunately, though they were rescued by Navy divers. So far, it is not known if the people living on river banks in Sindh suffered any losses. But, as usual, storm drains in Karachi remained clogged with garbage, with the result that rainwater inundated roads and residential areas all over the city, while at least one person died from electrocution.
Clearly, it is a combination of climate change and weak governance that is causing so much death and devastation. The federal and provincial governments should not blame everything on global warming. That, of course, calls for urgent mitigation and adaptation measures. But it is not enough to educate the masses about impending disasters; equally important is the need for action to offset their effects as far as possible.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022