باكستان تواجه غضب الفيضانات المتكررة: تحديات تغير المناخ ونقص الاستعداد الحكومي

ISLAMABAD — As villagers carried out the bodies of two children, soaked in mud, the large crowd looked impassive.

They had gathered in a small village in the Swabi district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after a flash flood washed away several houses, trapping dozens underneath the rubble.

Some of them watched on as the dead children were taken away, others continued their conversations, and the rest — along with a few rescue personnel and soldiers — kept searching for survivors with their tools and bare hands.

There were no tears, there was no panic. But there was anger.

For many villagers it was the fact that the floods came with no warning.

"Why didn't the government warn us sooner?" was the overwhelming sentiment.

But there was also rage at a perceived lack of support from local officials.

"We need the right equipment to carry out this rescue," Arif Khan, who was helping dig out the bodies, told us.

"There were about 15 houses here, we need an excavator."

Although emergency teams and the military were there to help, the equipment Arif had been begging for was trapped a few hundred metres away, unable to get through a flooded road.

"The ambulances, medicines and excavators are very much on the way," Nisar Ahmad, the commissioner for the Mardan District, told us. But they were still not able to reach the village due to the scale of the flooding. Throughout the day, the villagers continued removing the debris, as well as the bodies.

Scenes like this are not new in Pakistan. Since June alone, monsoon rains have killed about 800 people across the country.

In 2022, monsoon rains killed about 1,700 people, which cost Pakistan $14.9bn (£11.1bn) in damages and $16.3bn in recovery and reconstruction needs, according to the World Bank.

And in June this year alone, monsoon rains have killed at least 750 people across the country.

So if history is repeating itself, why can't Pakistan better protect itself from the onslaught of floods?

Pakistan's geography makes it extremely vulnerable to climate change — with the country having to contend with not just heavy monsoon rains, but extreme temperatures and drought. Its melting glaciers have also created new lakes at risk of glacial outbursts.

These trends are getting worse because of climate change, according to Dr Syed Faisal Saeed, chief meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD).

"Monsoon rains are likely to increase in the coming decades, so this issue is not a one year fix," he says.

Yet, this is a bitter pill to swallow for many, given Pakistan contributes less than 1% of the global greenhouse gas emissions.

There is a feeling that it is paying a big price for "international sins", says Dr Amjad Ali Khan, a member of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's National Assembly, who advises the chief minister on climate issues. His province is where most deaths have been recorded during this year's monsoons.

This is a sentiment shared across the political spectrum. The former federal climate minister, Senator Sherry Rehman, recently argued "when lives are lost in the Global South, when rivers burst their banks, and when livelihoods vanish, there is no real money for climate-vulnerable countries like Pakistan".

Some argue the country wrestles with how to spend its own money.

Climate resiliency will likely always contend with other priorities — such as defence — as this year's federal budget has shown.

Amid an overall reduction in spending, the budget for the Ministry of Climate Change was slashed to about $9.7m (£7.6m). Defence spending was hiked up to about $9bn (£6.93bn).

Ms Rehman slammed the cuts, and argued they send the wrong message. When the budget was announced, she asked: "If we are not seen investing in our own resilience, why would others support us?"

The Ministry of Climate Change's budget doesn't reflect climate funding in Pakistan, argues Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, an expert in climate risk management.

Under its agreement with the IMF, the federal government also earmarked more than $2bn more in climate-related spending. Yet, Sheikh says it includes some existing projects, such as dams and hydropower.

He says the budget aside, there are more than 1,000 unfinished development projects across sectors.

With no short-term fix to the impacts of climate change, early warning of these extreme weather events is a priority for the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD).

Extreme weather events such as cloudbursts are hard to predict in advance. They're caused by a sudden updraft in humid, moist air, which leads to a heavy and localised burst of rain. These have wrecked villages in recent days.

But Dr Saeed has said while these can't be predicted days in advance, the general conditions that can lead to a cloudburst can be identified.