Flooding in Pakistan

Pakistan has recently become victim to flooding in the last month. Monsoon rains brought the death of  422 people and left approximately 3000 injured. The flood also forced 350,000 people from their homes. In the Sindh province of Islamabad, the worst affected area, 4.5 million acres (80%) of their cash crops were submerged by the flood waters. In 2010 Pakistan suffered similar floods, this flood leaving a fifth of the country submerged underwater, making floods seem to be the disaster of choice for this region. 

Flooding of course is a dangerous enough hazard by itself. But this flood has done much more than simply displace a population of people for a period of time. This flood, as well as a similar flood in 2010, has also destroyed precious agriculture and, more so in 2010, affected livestock. Peoples livelihoods have been challenged in the last two years due to this flooding. The fact that this same type of flooding in the same area tells me that this country must not have many mitigating processes established for such events. Early monitoring  systems, weather forecasts, emergency warnings are all things that could have helped in mitigating this disaster. With Pakistans' livestock and agriculture being affected, the risk of famine may start to develop. 

Flooding in the UK also occurred in September, leaving many people displaced from their homes, but surprisingly or not, no deaths. The UK was able to avoid disastrous results by mitigating the affects of the flood. Early warnings were given so that people were able to evacuate in time along with forecasting systems to monitor the storm. 

I brought up the floods in the UK to compare how two similar events have two completely differnet outcomes based on the country in which the disasters hit. Pakistan is a less developed country on the global scale, which can be seem in their inadequacy to provide early warnings to citizens about to be impacted by potentially life threatening floods. In the UK, most of the destruction was in the form of infrastructure like roads and railways, as well as houses. But in Pakistan, the result was both high economic loss and also a higher loss of life. 

Articles found at:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/29/world/asia/pakistan-floods/index.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19763569

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19725625

Picture of flooded town: http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=10