Floods have Changed Pakistan Development Reality:
Until two weeks ago, the M1 ´ that connects capital Islamabad with Peshawar was an express way where you could drive at 120 kms an hour. Today, the tail-end of the Motorway ´ some 50 kilometers, wears a different look; right in the middle of the Motorway ´ the divider of the express way hosts hundreds, if not thousands, of tents hosting peasant families that have been living here for generations. The area ´ with peach, plum orchards and wheat, maize and tobacco leaf fields ´ once formed part of the Kabul River delta, and hence know for its fertility. Today, with the Kabul river overflowing due to glacial melt and unusually heavy monsoon rains, vast swathes of these villages in the vicinity of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (formerly known as Northwestern Frontier Province), are at the mercy of the swollen river.
People Fuming Out:
‘Never ever did we imagine that we shall have to one day swim to safety from our homes,’ said Wakeel Shah, a farmer of the Akbarpura village told CRSS. Heading a family of seven, Shah rescued his 12 year old son last of all when he was already shoulder-deep in water.
‘All our goats, cows and chicks are gone , so is the grain stock,’ said a despaired Shah, carrying his youngest near the tent, perched in the middle of the motorway that was the only higher ground to escape raging waters. Bakhtawar Khan, another villager from the same area saw his own mud-house melt into the water after the entire family had escaped to the safety of the motorway. ‘The Motorway saved us, I would say,’ said a dejected Khan, a farmer, who too lost his stock of the grains he had stored for the next few months. He also couldn–t save either of his cattle ´ two cows and four goats. Thousands of families are camping either on the road-side or in the middle of the road; only a couple of days ago, the town of Nowshehra, for instance, was half-submerged in raging waters, destroying or damaging even old military establishment structures, considered safe thus far.
Rains just not Stopping and Misery is Multiplying ´ Fast:
Much to the chagrin of the thousands of displaced, the river remains in excessive high flood even this weekend ´ thanks to the heavy monsoon showers on Thursday. Damages would run into billions as flood waters have practically destroyed local cash crops i.e. tobacco, paddy rice, sugarcane and maize, particularly in the entire belt along the Kabul river, a major tributary of the Indus river that is currently ravages plains of central and southern Pakistan.
It is an equally heart-wrenching sight while traveling on the Grand Trunk Road from Peshawar to Islamabad; ; an endless row of plastic sheets and tents pitched in the centre of, the towns of Akora Khattak, Nowshehra, Izakhel, Pabbi – usually bustling places to the right of River Kabul, have largely turned into stinking swamps. Small shopping blocs and surviving brick structures stand in knee-deep waters, while most of the mud-houses have either collapsed or washed away by the massive flood deluge. The air is filled with the stink of dead animals as well as off the old rugs and quilts that the survivors retrieved from their inundated homes.
Death and Destruction All Around:
Soaked rugs, quilts and padded bed sheets hang on the river embankments or temporary hangers along most of the over fifty kilometers stretch along the Kabul and the Indus river between Peshawar and Attock, where both rivers converge before meandering southwards. Plastic bags and bush branches hanging from tree branches bear testimony to the levels that the water rose to in Nowshehra. The army sent in about a dozen boats to rescue people marooned in flood waters, including hundreds of army personnel families from the cantonment. It all resulted from the heavy cloud-burst for several days in the last week of July, coupled with the glacial melt, overfilling the mighty Indus, the Kabul river as well as their tributaries. Houses vanished, small belongings washed away, all remaining homes and markets deserted, while most of them still stand in at least knee-deep water, all the settlements look like stinking swamps.
The gushing waters have obliterated fields in the mountainous and hilly north, turned farms into barren mudflats littered with debris and tree trunks, leaving about 600,000 people cut off from the rest of the country. Stories of almost everybody you meet either on the Motorway or on the G.T. Road sound the same; loss of precious belongings and of sources of livelihood, a daunting challenge in the months to come both for the government and the international community.
This means losses not only to the owners but also the already impoverished daily-wage workers. They have lost wages, farmers have lost crops and livestock and the state revenues. It is yet another economic crisis in the making for a nation already in political turmoil and economic meltdown. One can see residents scrambling back to their homes and shops to see if they can return. But the streets and homes are at best pools of swamp at the moment. The marble factories that once polluted the entire locality, are dead-silent at the moment, with water and mud lording over the factory premises.
People Question: When would the World Wake-up?
Despite all exhortations, the international community has been slow in responding to what UN officials describe as perhaps the worst disaster in decades.
The United States has committed over 75 million dollars in an attempt to overcome widespread anti-American sentiment, inducted over a dozen helicopters including several Chinouks but for several days incessant rains and thick hampered deliveries, particularly to the upper mountainous region of Swat and Malakand, which was cleared of militants last year in a massive military operation. But despite a 460 million dollar emergency aid appeal, the international community sofar has been less forthcoming as the massive water deluge wreaks havoc in central and southern Pakistan, sweeping a good chunk of the country cash crop cotton and paddy rice. It has also forced shutdown of critical power stations due to inundation.
‘It seems the furious mother nature has joined hands with the radical islamist insurgents to pile misery on us, there is no break,’ said Zobair Torwal, a resident of Bahrain, a picturesque town in the hills upper Swat, which too has suffered unbearable damages to human life and livelihoods. It will take a while, said Riaz Shah, another resident of Bahrain, to rehabilitate our people.