Editorial

Disasters happen. They destroy. Lives and livelihoods. The rest is all discussion. A lot of this discussion is repetitive. And is mostly disconnected with the tragedy that has already happened.

Floods, too, are an example of disaster. Or, are they?

Every few years we experience floods in some parts of the country, leading to death and destruction. The media coverage of suffering, hungry and displaced people, the rulers taking aerial views of vast swathes of swamped agricultural land in order to calculate budgetary losses, helicopters throwing food bags leading to riots of sorts, dykes blasted with dynamites and on the basis of political vested interest -- it has all become a kind of routine.

The safely placed city-dweller picks up one of the many charities to donate and gets on with his life.

Are floods then something that is preordained; something that we will have to live with for the rest of our lives?

Close to home, India has learnt to and implemented many localised flood management plans. Instead of letting the excessive water available in the form of floods go waste, it has "undertaken construction of reservoirs, detention basins, embankments, river channels, flood water diversion, and watershed management". It has built a number of dams and flood mitigation is one of their many objectives.

We, in Pakistan, on the other hand, do not learn despite having invested hugely in state organisations meant to prevent disasters. 2010 taught us many lessons but they were not heeded, neither in terms of efficient forecasting and warning systems nor in pre and post flood management systems, including construction of new dams.

How to tame and manage floods is what our Special Report today is all about.