Pakistan is once again reeling from the devastation of relentless monsoon rains and floods. In just three weeks, more than a hundred lives have been lost – half of them children – across Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Streets have become rivers, homes are submerged, and rescue efforts struggle to keep pace. Familiar scenes of despair – families stranded, helicopters circling overhead and mothers pleading for relief – underscore a tragedy that repeats every year.
This is not just a natural disaster; it is a crisis of climate change colliding with human negligence. The catastrophic floods of 2022, which submerged a third of the country and resulted in $30 billion in losses, should have served as a wake-up call. Yet, we find ourselves unprepared once again.
Nowhere is this vulnerability more stark than in Gilgit-Baltistan, home to rapidly melting glaciers. Temperatures here have soared past 48 C, triggering glacial lake outbursts and flash floods that erase entire villages like Hamorkhay. Early warning systems, intended to save lives, are often either broken, missing or poorly connected to local communities.
This unfolding disaster is not just about extreme weather – it is a damning indictment of our failure to adapt, prepare, and protect those most at risk.
Meanwhile, down in the plains, our cities are drowning in water not just because of rain, but also because decades of reckless construction have buried natural drainage systems under concrete. Rivers have burst their banks because upstream reservoirs were not drained on time, a missed chance that could have reduced the force of this watery onslaught. Even our own daily choices, the encroachment of green belts, reckless urban sprawl and the casual disregard for environmental laws are pushing our children closer to these floodwaters every monsoon.
Yet, amid this wreckage, we must ask: what will we do differently? The predictable reaction is to demand more foreign aid, more rescue operations, more sandbags and plastic tents. But if the 2022 floods taught us anything, it is that money alone, especially borrowed money, will not rescue us from this cycle of devastation. Pakistan borrowed billions after the floods of 2010 and 2011 – debts that we are still repaying at the expense of schools, hospitals and clean water projects. Ironically, when the next flood came, we had to borrow yet again to rebuild what we should have built stronger the first time.
The time has come for us to break this cycle of flood and forget. We need to flip our recovery playbook. First, we must stop thinking of disaster management as a seasonal scramble and start thinking of it as a full-time national mission. Islamabad cannot afford to be the capital of reactive politics.
We need real-time data systems that actually work, that local communities trust, and that feed directly into clear protocols for draining reservoirs before peak snowmelt hits. Our meteorological departments should not be passive weather forecasters but active crisis managers who translate forecasts into practical instructions for every district.
Second, our cities must breathe again. Urban sprawl has turned natural floodplains into concrete traps. We need a radical rethink of how we expand. If there is one truth staring us in the face, it is that building into floodplains must be banned. Green belts along our rivers are not wasted space; they are our last line of defence. Islamabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi cannot be allowed to choke on illegal colonies that block every channel through which rainwater once flowed safely into rivers.
But let’s not stop at bans and fines that are never enforced. Let’s flip our development model. What if, instead of pouring concrete everywhere, we adopted local, sustainable construction methods? Pakistan’s self-resilience housing models, inspired by using mud bricks and local materials, are not primitive relics- they are low-cost, climate-smart solutions that create local jobs, shorten supply chains, and ensure that communities themselves can rebuild homes after a disaster strikes.
Third, our economic model of recovery must abandon its obsession with loans. The debt trap has left us mortgaging our future. Instead of spending billions repaying old debts, we need to mobilise our people. Pakistanis at home and abroad have a strong culture of donations in times of crisis, but these are too often channelled into short-term charity instead of long-term resilience. Imagine a national climate resilience fund that uses private donations, domestic zakat, diaspora remittances and local philanthropy to build flood defences, restore wetlands and upgrade drainage systems. We have the social capital but we must redirect it with a plan, not a plea for pity.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we must not ignore the hidden wounds that floods leave behind. Every time a house collapses or a child is swept away, the loss is more than economic. Mental scars linger. In the aftermath of the 2022 floods, studies showed that timely counselling and psychosocial support helped survivors rebuild their lives faster and more fully. If we want communities to recover, we must treat trauma as seriously as we treat damaged roads. No family should feel abandoned once the water recedes.
These are not utopian ideas. They are rooted in the lessons we have already paid for with lives, livelihoods and lost generations. Climate change is no longer a distant threat for us; it is here, roaring through our rivers and pounding on our roofs every monsoon. But while we contribute almost nothing to global carbon emissions, we do contribute plenty to the poor planning that makes every downpour a disaster.
This monsoon must not be remembered just for the lives it claimed but for the lessons we finally learned. Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and every vulnerable village in Gilgit-Baltistan deserve better than business-as-usual. It is time to think bigger than tents and rescue boats. It is time to build back smarter, not just for the next flood, but for the next generation that should not have to stand on rooftops waving shawls at helicopters while wondering if anyone is listening.
The writer is a policy analyst and researcher with a Master’s degree in public policy from King’s College London.