The monsoon has once again arrived as an uninvited guest of destruction in Pakistan. Since late June, relentless downpours have culminated in catastrophe.
Cloudbursts and flash floods have wiped out entire villages, killing hundreds and injuring even more. In Punjab alone, over two million people have been displaced across more than 2000 villages. This is not an exceptional tragedy but the third catastrophic flood in just 15 years, after the 2010 super floods and the 2022 deluge. It goes to show that these disasters are escalating, not abating.
Pakistan’s flood vulnerability is historic. Major floods in 1950, 1973, 1976, 1988, 1992, 2010 and 2022, have killed over 12,300 people and caused $38 billion in losses. The Federal Flood Commission (FFC), created to manage flood protection, has received aid from the World Bank, UNDP, JICA and USAID, but remains mired in corruption and incompetence. In 2019, an international panel recommended modernising flood protection, but these warnings were ignored. The NDMA’s monsoon guidelines of 2025 are near replicas of those from 2020 and 2022. Institutions continue to recycle warnings while disasters recycle destruction.
Hotter land, a warmer Arabian Sea, and deforested slopes combined to make catastrophe inevitable this summer. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, forests that once covered 12 per cent of land are vanishing; Malakand has lost half its tree cover since 2005 and Chitral may lose a quarter by 2030. Deforestation strips natural protection, heats bare land, and intensifies the ‘heat pump’ that fuels floods and landslides. The IPCC warns that every 1.5–2C rise lets the atmosphere hold around 7.0 per cent more moisture, driving extreme cloudbursts.
These are not ‘natural’ disasters but the outcome of reckless urbanisation, weak regulation and political negligence. From Karachi’s annual urban flooding, fueled by clogged sewers, vanished permeable land and elite-centric planning, to the Indus Delta – where seawater intrusion has rendered 2.2 million acres barren, per PCRWR –Pakistan’s water crisis is layered and systemic.
While floods devastate broadly, women, girls and transgender persons face disproportionate risks. In 2022, some 650,000 pregnant women were affected, many forced to travel hours by boat to deliver safely. Pakistan’s maternal mortality rate is 186 per 100,000 live births, rising to 224 in Sindh and 298 in Balochistan, figures likely to worsen when reproductive care collapses.
Relief camps often lack privacy, segregated toilets and separate food distribution, exposing women and transgender people to violence and exploitation. Mobility barriers further compound the dangers. For transgender persons, exclusion from housing, healthcare and legal protection magnifies their vulnerability. Excluding women and marginalised groups severely weakens resilience.
Plus, floods also take a heavy toll on animals, an often-overlooked dimension of these disasters. Each day, images emerge of stray animals clinging to debris, drowning in submerged neighbourhoods and livestock swept away in swollen rivers, their heads barely above water as they struggle to breathe. Carcasses scatter across inundated fields. In Peshawar, a distressed porcupine was even spotted darting along flooded roads, its spines slick with panic. For rural families, the loss of cattle, goats and poultry is not only an emotional blow but also the destruction of their primary source of income and food security.
Evacuation to safety is essential, but no amount of money can restore the eroded ‘sense of belonging’ to one’s home and community. The mental toll is immense in a country already battling with a mental health crisis. Is there any plan to address this looming mental health fallout? One can only hope or fantasise.
Globally, the UNDRR reports a 150 per cent surge in disaster costs between 1970 and 2000 and 2001–2020, with losses now topping $2.3 trillion. Yet only 2.0 per cent of aid goes to risk reduction. As for the $10.99 billion pledged after Pakistan’s 2022 floods, only 42 per cent has been disbursed by mid-2025, just 5.0 per cent as grants. Most flows are loans, adding to debt.
Domestically, neglect is equally stark. The 2026 budget cut disaster preparedness by 30 per cent. The multimillion-dollar early warning system for Buner and Shangla failed to alert villagers during a recent outburst flood. District Disaster Management Authorities remain underfunded and reactive, springing into action only when the media arrives.
Honesty must anchor the response: these disasters are predictable and preventable. Pakistan must reset governance. The FFC should be reformed into an independent Flood & Catchment Authority with open contracting, embankment audits and penalties for illegal logging and mining – or be dissolved.
Relief should be gender- and inclusion-responsive, ensuring maternal clinics, safe spaces with GBV protections, separate food distribution and direct aid access for women and transgender persons, backed by dedicated budgets. It must also tackle the psychological toll of repeated displacement through psychosocial support and community spaces that restore dignity and belonging in a country already facing a mental health crisis.
And animals, too, have a life; relief planning should integrate animal rescue, veterinary care and safe shelters, protecting the livelihoods of families who depend on livestock, while also extending compassion to stray animals whose suffering is an often-overlooked consequence of every flood.
Long-term resilience demands flood-resilient housing, embankments, drainage upgrades, and planned relocation from risky valleys. A notable example in this context is Bangladesh, which utilises elevated platforms to mitigate flooding, cyclone-proof brick soaked in tamarind water and solar-plus-rainwater systems, with many homes doubling as community shelters. The government of Bangladesh supports projects alongside BRAC, the Green Climate Fund and ADB.
Education must dismantle fatalism, teaching that disasters are human-driven, not divine punishments. Disaster authorities need resources, training and autonomy to act proactively. Early warning systems must deliver real-time, community-level alerts that are clear and actionable.
Equally crucial is ecological and urban repair. Pakistan must embrace the ‘sponge city’ model – permeable pavements, rooftop gardens, rainwater harvesting and Miyawaki forests. Green buffer zones, retention ponds and small reservoirs can absorb peak flows. Waste management reforms must prevent dumping into rivers. Forests must be preserved, degraded slopes restored and bioengineering methods like brush layering deployed to stabilise riverbanks.
Similarly, other regional models also offer guidance. Indonesia is working on restoring over 2.6 million hectares of forest and peatlands. The Philippines is using integrated river basin management, combining reforestation with early warning. Thailand’s Chulalongkorn Centenary Park stores one million gallons of rainwater to ease sewer stress. Vietnam and Myanmar are redesigning drainage basins into multifunctional green zones. India’s cities are turning to urban wetlands for flood mitigation and water quality. Pakistan can adapt these lessons, blending NbS with grey infrastructure to create hybrid defences.
Anything less than decisive reform is a choice to relive this tragedy. The poor will remain trapped in floodplains, stripped of homes and belonging, unless Pakistan rebuilds its infrastructure and institutions. Climate justice must be demanded internationally and resilience must be built domestically. Pakistan can no longer afford to treat adaptation as an afterthought or explain away avoidable deaths as divine decree.
Furqan Ali is a Peshawar-based researcher who works in the financial sector.
Arfa Ijaz is an environmental engineer and a researcher working in the energy sector.