Daily Times

While the state appears satisfied with just sounding the alarm bells from a safe distance (punctuated by a few camera appearances), the ongoing brutal monsoon season is in no mood to tune down the ferociousness. As many as 50 villages have been engulfed, the casualties are fast galloping towards the 500-mark and the infrastructure is gasping for air after being battered by unprecedented rainfall for over five weeks.

From the hilly terrain of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to remote regions of Balochistan to the country’s largest city, Karachi, no one can find cover anywhere and amid a forecast of “above-normal” rainfall throughout August, Punjab would soon join the heavily-hit squad. That the sitting government should have been cautious enough to open its eyes to the storm heading for its alleys much, much earlier would be an understatement. What has gone down across Pakistan is a textbook case of skewed priorities and criminal neglect.

At the most critical juncture in the tenure, all ruling parties were busy perfecting a play for the throne than to care a little for the hapless citizens. This barbaric negligence would take years, if not decades, and millions of precious foreign exchange to recover. In the 22nd year of the twenty-first century, we are forced to hang our heads in resignation as a much-expected natural disaster washes away our roads, bridges and even railway linkages. Areas like Toba Achakzai hit the double whammy as after collapsed dams swept away hundreds, if not thousands, of livestock and blew a death kiss to crops, they were disconnected from the rest of the country for frighteningly four days. Tragically ironic or ironically tragic! However, much more terrifying than the suspension of traffic between Balochistan and Sindh and the trade linkages with Iran have been the gaping holes the endless series of mother nature’s anger fits have pulled in our reservoirs. Hub dam has already opened its spillways and is ready to crumble down if the weather conditions remain just as unrelenting.

In comparison to all this, our prime minister takes his pretty while to come up with a master plan, which involves nothing more than aerial supervision. Simply slapping on an emergency rescue bandage and designating the armed forces for shouldering the burden of civilian institutions does not signal any shift in the line of action. Clearly, we have not learned any lessons from the last few years of the worsening onslaught of environmental disasters. May it be the spell of an unbearable heatwave (one of the worst, worldwide) or an extreme downpour, the people have no one but themselves to rely upon.

The provincial administrations are running in the same league where the Balochistan government’s spokesperson has drawn the ire for not-so-appropriate media appearances and Mr Murad Ali Shah and Co have gone missing altogether. Has the imposition of Section 144 helped thousands of houses being washed away by the rising water levels in any way whatsoever? And if not, doesn’t asking people to exercise caution amount to rubbing salt in their wounds? Like always, let the prayers and self-help lead the way because this country does not believe in policymaking or doing homework. *