Pakistan’s Floods: A Disaster Made Worse by Neglect

 

Heavy rains have once again brought death and destruction to Pakistan. More than 270 people are gone, and many others are missing. Villages in Buner, in the northwest, were swept away within minutes by a sudden cloud burst. Families that had lived for generations in the same valleys saw everything buried under mud and stones.

Authorities in Islamabad have defended their handling of the disaster. They argue that the rain was so intense and so sudden that it was impossible to alert people in time. To some extent, I accept that explanation. No government can hold back a cloud burst. But the real issue is not the storm itself. The problem lies in years of neglect. No serious attempt has ever been made to set up proper calamity centres in vulnerable areas. No strict rules have been enforced to stop people from building homes along drainage paths or near water flows. When the rains come, the people pay the price for this carelessness.

Stories of Loss

Survivors speak in pain that words cannot capture. One man, Sulaman Khan, said he had 29 members of his family at home that night. The flood took almost all of them. Four were injured. The rest died. Five bodies have still not been found. His story is not unique. Ten to twelve villages have been at least partly buried.

Rescue work is painfully slow. The army and local volunteers are digging with bare hands. People cry out for machinery, yet survivors insist not a single excavator was sent. Entire neighbourhoods are flattened, while families plead with officials for help to recover the bodies of their loved ones.

The Official Line

Authorities point out that Pakistan does have an early warning system. Weather alerts were issued before the storm. Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer and climate activist, told Deutsche Welle that he himself received warnings days in advance. In his view, the tragedy is less about the failure of alerts and more about where people live. Generations have settled right next to riverbeds. When the water surges, there is no chance of escape.

He adds that climate change is making everything worse. Pakistan has already suffered glacier lake outburst floods, and the rains are now heavier and more unpredictable than before. “Unless the global north fulfills its promises to cut emissions,” Alam warned, “what happens in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan.”

The Hard Questions

That point is valid. Pakistan cannot fight climate change alone. But we also cannot keep blaming outsiders while repeating the same mistakes at home. Where are the no-build zones near riverbeds? Where is the afforestation drive that every government promises but never delivers? Why do we build infrastructure without considering that the world will be two degrees warmer by 2050?

The answers are uncomfortable. Year after year, governments defend their role after disasters, but they never invest in prevention. People continue to build on fragile land because no one stops them. Local administrators turn a blind eye. And when tragedy strikes, all that remains is grief.

A Chance for Cooperation

Alam also touched on another truth: disasters do not stop at borders. Both Pakistan and India are hit by the same monsoons. Both suffer air pollution that kills thousands of children every year. Yet both remain locked in hostility, unable even to imagine cooperation on disaster relief. It would cost nothing to allow academic and technical experts to share data, to let disaster management agencies coordinate across the Line of Control in Kashmir. But politics prevents even these small steps.

A Final Word

The floods in Buner are not the last. More rain is coming, and landslides may follow. Pakistan is poor, yes, but poverty is not an excuse for negligence. Machines could have been sent to dig people out. Calamity centres could have been set up years ago. Rules could have been enforced to prevent homes along dangerous riverbanks. None of that was done.

So while I acknowledge the defence that no one could predict the full force of a cloud burst, I cannot ignore the deeper truth. This disaster was not only about the weather. It was also about our choices. And unless those choices change, Pakistan’s grief will repeat itself again and again.