{"id":20000552,"date":"2010-08-12T17:40:41","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T17:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/184.172.177.95\/~chinad\/?p=552"},"modified":"2010-08-12T17:40:41","modified_gmt":"2010-08-12T17:40:41","slug":"disaster-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Disaster in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>Pakistan is in the grip of a deluge that some say is the worst since 1929 \u2013 18 years before the land became an independent nation. On Monday, Reuters<\/a> said, medical teams were dispatched to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa<\/a> (formerly known as North-West Frontier Province) amid fears that cholera and other water-borne diseases could spread, adding to the country\u2019s suffering.<\/p>\n

Already, up to 1,200 people have been reported dead in the disaster, according to one official cited by the Associated Press<\/a>. Some two million other Pakistanis have been forced to flee their homes, while several thousands more remain trapped by raging floodwaters following July\u2019s unusually heavy monsoon rains in the north-west. The New York Times<\/a> said Pakistan\u2019s military and emergency workers \u201cstruggled against time and nature\u201d to reach at least 10,000 people trapped by collapsed bridges, flooded roads and rising waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re out of bridges, so it\u2019s the necessity of time to reach them by air,\u201d the American newspaper quoted Adnan Khan, an official at Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa\u2019s Provincial Disaster Management Authority, as saying. Many of the bridges had been built by the army after it defeated Taliban militants in the Swat<\/a> valley \u2013 renowned for its great natural beauty — last year.<\/p>\n

Fazl Maula Zahid, a regional manager at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Swat, told The Times that 100,000 acres of soil (over 40,000 hectares) along the Swat river had been washed out. It would take a decade, he said, to restore fertility to the area, which feeds 50,000 people.<\/p>\n

Amid the suffering and the statistics \u2013 and the rising water levels at dams — the disaster has \u201crenewed Pakistan\u2019s bitter internal feuds over water infrastructure, which has badly deteriorated during years of political stalemate\u201d, The Globe and Mail<\/a> reported. \u201cWe should have spent years preparing for this,\u201d the Canadian paper quoted parliamentarian Marvi Memon<\/a> as saying. Memon, who toured the chaotic flooded areas, said the Pakistani government has broken promises to raise embankments, maintain canals and build small dams that could have kept the waters at bay.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s capacity to hold monsoon rains has fallen as its dams fill with silt, reducing their storage to 12 million acre-feet<\/a> from 18 million in the past five decades, according to The Globe and Mail. (An acre-foot is the volume of one acre of surface area to a depth of one foot.)<\/p>\n

A new dam, Kalabagh, was announced five years ago,\u201d correspondent Graeme Smith wrote, \u201cbut the project stalled because people downstream worried it might be used to steal their water.\u201d Supporters of the dam said Pakistan should learn from the current disaster. \u201cKalabagh dam would have helped prevent flooding,\u201d the governor of Punjab Province, Salmaan Taseer<\/a>, wrote on Twitter<\/a> last Thursday.<\/p>\n

Bashir Ahmad Malik, one of Pakistan\u2019s top water experts, agreed that Kalabagh and other infrastructure projects are needed to prevent such catastrophes. \u201cIt\u2019s very silly that we don\u2019t understand these things, as a nation,\u201d The Globe and Mail quoted Malik<\/a>, an engineer who has been a technical adviser to the United Nations and the World Bank, as saying. \u201cIt\u2019s really quite sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The flood-affected rivers in Pakistan all feed into the Indus<\/a>, which originates on the Tibetan Plateau and flows into the southern province of Sindh, en route to the Arabian Sea. Later this week, as the rains move south, a large water surge is expected in Sindh, where officials have been trying to persuade residents of low-lying areas to evacuate. \u201cA super-flood of this magnitude will be the first in 18 to 20 years to hit Sindh,\u201d Reuters quoted a provincial government spokesman as saying. But some people are refusing to leave until temporary shelter is provided. \u201cThey have no places to stay, so where are they supposed to go?\u201d Memon asked.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s weather bureau said an \u201cunprecedented\u201d 312 millimetres (nearly 12.3 inches) of rain hit the country\u2019s north-west in just 36 hours last week. In the capital, Islamabad<\/a>, the forecast<\/a> calls for heavy rain every day until Friday.<\/p>\n

(For updates on the humanitarian aid situation in Pakistan, see ReliefWeb here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pakistan is in the grip of a deluge that some say is the worst since 1929 \u2013 18 years before the land became an independent nation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[761,50039903],"tags":[556,50040707,50040328,607],"hashtags":[],"country":[20000112],"class_list":["post-20000552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate","category-water","tag-infrastructure","tag-the-third-pole","tag-water-quality","tag-water-scarcity","country-pakistan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDisaster in Pakistan | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pakistan is in the grip of a deluge that some say is the worst since 1929 \u2013 18 years before the land became an independent nation.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Disaster in Pakistan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pakistan is in the grip of a deluge that some say is the worst since 1929 \u2013 18 years before the land became an independent nation.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dialogue Earth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-12T17:40:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-logo_Thumbnail.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Maryann Bird\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Maryann Bird\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/d194e5e34f95c78e0c54a8921ff0dedb\"},\"headline\":\"Disaster in Pakistan\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-08-12T17:40:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/\"},\"wordCount\":671,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Infrastructure\",\"The Third Pole\",\"Water quality\",\"Water scarcity\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Climate\",\"Water\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/\",\"name\":\"Disaster in Pakistan | Dialogue Earth\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-08-12T17:40:41+00:00\",\"description\":\"Pakistan is in the grip of a deluge that some say is the worst since 1929 \u2013 18 years before the land became an independent nation.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Disaster in Pakistan\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/\",\"name\":\"Dialogue Earth\",\"description\":\"Global climate and environment news\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization\",\"name\":\"\u5bf9\u8bdd\u5730\u7403\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-Symbol-Logo_Black-Text.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-Symbol-Logo_Black-Text.png\",\"width\":256,\"height\":256,\"caption\":\"\u5bf9\u8bdd\u5730\u7403\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DialogueEarth_\",\"\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DialogueEarth.English\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dialogue.earth\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/dialogueearth\/\"],\"publishingPrinciples\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/about\/\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/d194e5e34f95c78e0c54a8921ff0dedb\",\"name\":\"Maryann Bird\",\"description\":\"Maryann Bird is former associate editor of chinadialogue.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/author\/maryannbird\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/author\/maryannbird\/\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Disaster in Pakistan | Dialogue Earth","description":"Pakistan is in the grip of a deluge that some say is the worst since 1929 \u2013 18 years before the land became an independent nation.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Disaster in Pakistan","og_description":"Pakistan is in the grip of a deluge that some say is the worst since 1929 \u2013 18 years before the land became an independent nation.","og_url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/","og_site_name":"Dialogue Earth","article_published_time":"2010-08-12T17:40:41+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-logo_Thumbnail.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Maryann Bird","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/"},"author":{"name":"Maryann Bird","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/d194e5e34f95c78e0c54a8921ff0dedb"},"headline":"Disaster in Pakistan","datePublished":"2010-08-12T17:40:41+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/"},"wordCount":671,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization"},"keywords":["Infrastructure","The Third Pole","Water quality","Water scarcity"],"articleSection":["Climate","Water"],"inLanguage":"en","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/","name":"Disaster in Pakistan | Dialogue Earth","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-08-12T17:40:41+00:00","description":"Pakistan is in the grip of a deluge that some say is the worst since 1929 \u2013 18 years before the land became an independent nation.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/disaster-in-pakistan\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Disaster in Pakistan"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/","name":"Dialogue Earth","description":"Global climate and environment news","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization","name":"\u5bf9\u8bdd\u5730\u7403","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-Symbol-Logo_Black-Text.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-Symbol-Logo_Black-Text.png","width":256,"height":256,"caption":"\u5bf9\u8bdd\u5730\u7403"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/DialogueEarth_","","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DialogueEarth.English","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dialogue.earth\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/dialogueearth\/"],"publishingPrinciples":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/about\/"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/d194e5e34f95c78e0c54a8921ff0dedb","name":"Maryann Bird","description":"Maryann Bird is former associate editor of chinadialogue.","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/author\/maryannbird\/","sameAs":["https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/author\/maryannbird\/"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20000552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20000552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20000552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20000552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20000552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20000552"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=20000552"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=20000552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}