It was an ordinary August morning. The sky was overcast, but nothing unusual at least, not at first at exactly 9:40 am with light rain, the sky roared.
First came the lightning, then deafening thunder, hit with mud, massive rocks, and water, all crashing down together from three different sides towards the Pir Baba area. In a matter of minutes, entire villages of Buner District including Qadar Nagar, Bishonai,Gokand, Batai and Chagarzai vanished, houses swept away along with families’ women and children.
Pirbaba Bazar was soon inundated with eight feet of mud water – dead bodies floating and some struggling to survive in streets of Pir Baba Bazar areas. This wasn’t a flood. This was a wall of death. What caused it? A cloud burst or a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF)?
I have worked for nearly two decades in disaster relief all over Pakistan. I have seen floods in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in 2011-2022, KP earthquakes, landslides, the Tharparkar drought in 2014 and even two plane crashes in 2010 but this disaster has been so complex and beyond my imagination.
In Buner alone, according to the PDMA, over 228 lives were lost, 120 injured and 3868 cattle perished. More than 162 homes were completely destroyed and 575 partially destroyed alongside 29 schools and 14 health facilities. Entire families wiped out in seconds. In Pir Baba, one of the busiest bazaars in Buner, hundreds of shops now lie buried beneath six to eight feet of mud, rocks and massive boulders. The rocks that crashed down aren’t even native to the area. Locals swear they have never seen such massive, truck-sized stones hurtling down the mountains. It was as if the earth itself turned against them. The destruction is so complete, it's surreal.
I have been blessed to have very good local friends Faysal Khan and Fakhre Alam Bacha in the Taht Band village who welcomed us. With their help and support, I have been working non-stop with relief work. Every corner carries a story of horror and loss. In Gokand village, one family had been preparing for a wedding. They lost 40 loved ones in an instant. I stood silently at their hujra while they prayed. Another family lost 24 members and another lost 17 in one house where seven brothers once lived in a joint family system for peace and love. There are no words for grief like this.
The stench of death still lingers in the air. Even five days later, beneath boulders the size of houses, the bodies remain trapped. Survivors told me it began gently with light rain. But then the darkness came. They said it felt like the Day of Judgment. Roars louder than anything they had ever heard shook their homes. And in front of their eyes just meters away entire houses, their children, their mothers, their siblings were swept away. And they couldn’t even move. They just froze.
Where lush green lawns once stood, there are now fields of rock. Where rice crops swayed just a week ago, lies a graveyard. I saw one field where 20 people were buried under mud and stone. There's no machinery that can lift these boulders. You can’t dig here. You can’t rebuild. It’s not just homes that were lost. Livelihoods are gone. Rickshaw drivers, daily wage vendors, shopkeepers – everything they owned has been erased.
And yet, as always, the people of Pakistan have shown incredible generosity. Food, clothes and medicine have poured in. But this time, the needs are different. This isn’t about ration bags anymore. These people need reconstruction, relocation, rehabilitation and mental wellness. They need homes, safe places to live and a reason to believe that life can start again. But we have seen what happens in disasters like this. Since the 2005 earthquake, I have witnessed a painful pattern: aid flows in fast without any idea of what is required or what is needed the most but often ends in the wrong hands. Donations become business. Politicians, middlemen and fake organisations and so many others exploit the pain of others to line their pockets.
Meanwhile, the real victims, especially in remote, hard-to-reach areas, wait endlessly. In Buner, conservative women will not come forward to ask for help. So when aid only reaches central areas for media coverage, the most vulnerable are left behind.
Yes, the injured are being treated. The dead are buried. Food is available in major UCs and villages of flood hit areas in Buner but thousands of families can never return home. Their land is buried beneath rocks. The government may soon have to declare these areas uninhabitable. But I know these people. I have lived among them, worked with them for 20 years. They will not leave easily. Their roots go deeper than their broken homes.
This is why I plead: don’t send random donations without understanding the needs. Ask the right questions. Support trusted organisations. Don’t let this disaster become someone else’s profit. We must rebuild the Pir Baba bazaar. We must help shopkeepers clear the mud, rebuild their stalls and restock their goods. We must create new homes, rehabilitate small shops and businesses, offer trauma support and restore livelihoods.
Pakistan is already among the top 10 countries badly affected by climate change. It is our harsh new normal. Each year, KP bears the brunt of floods, cloudbursts, landslides and yet the earth temperatures are rising and more GLOFs will occur in the near future frequently. Without serious planning, transparent relief mechanisms, building more dams and climate-resilient infrastructure, large scale plantation, lobbying and putting political pressure on developed countries to cut emissions, we will continue to bury entire communities under the weight of disasters that are only becoming more frequent and more destructive.
Finally, this isn’t just the story of one flood. It is a warning. Climate change is here. It’s not a future threat but Pakistan’s new reality. And if we don’t build smarter, act faster and care deeper, then every year we will be forced to write new obituaries for entire communities. I have never felt so helpless. But I also know this: If we act now with compassion, strategy and honesty there’s still hope. Let’s not let Buner become just another forgotten tragedy. Let’s help it become a story of resilience.
The writer, an advocate of the Islamabad High Court, has been deeply involved in disaster rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts across Pakistan.He can be reached at: usmanrafiquepkgmail.com