1.3 Pakistan

Question 1

What was the Pakistan Flood?

Answer 1

• In August 2010 floods caused humanitarian crisis
• 1 in 110 year flood affecting 190m people
• Relief efforts poor
• Millions died during flood/recovery stages
• Population density of 200/km2
• Indus valley has 5 tributaries flows 3000km in middle of Pakistan.
• Indus used for irrigation and power.
• Climate dominated by monsoon season, producing rainy season covering most of the country with hot, wet and oppressively humid conditions

Question 2

What were the causes?

Answer 2

• 5 days of exceptional precipitation
• 60 hours continuous rainfall 30% more than 3 month period in just 60h
• Upper parts of catchment in mountains of Skiddaw - hard rocks and soils are thin and don’t hold moisture well
• Destructive tsunami like wave tore through mountain valleys which fed into the main channel, creating floods that travelled southwards and affected entire river courses
• Sukkur lies downstream of the convergence, taking a week for the mass of floodwater to reach.

After the initial surge, monsoon rains continued as normal to add to the discharge

• heavy storms in the NW and NE provinces produced further waves prolonging inundation.
• River flow peaked at 32,000 cumecs

Question 3

What made the causes worse?

Answer 3

• Swat valley deforestation by Taliban who stripped trees, leaving path for surface runoff
• Sind levees raised the river channel above the plains, leaving them exposed to flooding when broken
• Repairs to riverbanks prevented by monsoon rains and flooding
• In normal year anticyclone pushes the subtropical jet stream to the north to prevent weather systems reaching Pakistan however a meteorological pattern allowed storms to spread into Pakistan and combine with the monsoon.
• Climate change has also led to a rise in occurrence and increased number of heavy rainfall events

Question 4

What were the impacts?

Answer 4

Physical:

• 1/5 of Pakistan submerged - Indus 24km wide
• Stretches of swamp became sea
• 11000 villages inundated, 1.2m houses damaged or destroyed.
• 7m ha of the most fertile land destroyed
• Led to food shortages and food price inflation
• Cost to agriculture at £1.5bn
• Dikes breached to release pressure on flood land
• Ancient ruins destroyed

Human:

• 1600 deaths - surprisingly low and mostly in early wave
• Estimated 14m affected
• 6m at risk of starvation
• Cholera outbreak in Swat valley where 600000 were cut off during the flooding
• Most victims poor, rural peasants who lost land, houses and animals
• Homelessness
• 300,000 refugees in Sukkur - camps filled quickly so people left on roadsides
• Bridges and stations destroyed
• Conditions hot and humid, mosquitos and plague, lack food and water
• Some were marooned and had to stay on raised embankments with no shelter or food.

Question 5

Why was there failure in the response?

Answer 5

Government:

• Aid effort failed
• Most help from army, saving 30,000 in 72h with boats and airlifts. 30,000 soldiers involved in rebuilding, food, bridges camps - by end of week saved 100,000 people.
• President claimed he could not help, took a trip to Europe and failed to declare a state of national emergency.
• Funds for air short - £900,000 only 5% of tax incomes
• Military still fighting Taliban through this

International

• Only got $158m in 3 months as few countries donated and Haiti got 10x more aid.
• $4 per person compared to Haiti $495 per person
• WB estimated $1.7bn needed and quickly made $900m after this as charities and NGOs helped. However the aid was ineffectively used as there were blocked access routes, collapsed cities, dry land, lack of clean water, sanitation, shortages and security
• Aid quickly slowed down and issues remained high