Adil Najam
The death toll continues to mount. From 228 it leapt up to 417, and now the authorities in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province say that it is more than 800. Casualties are also mounting in Sindh Punjab and Baluchistan.
If the 800 number is correct then the national toll must be well above 1000. And all of this as the ‘super flood’ that is expected in Sindh and Punjab because of these rains has not even hit as yet!
But the number of the day today is neither 800 or 1000, it is 1,000,000: Over one million people, according to the United Nations, have now been affected by these rains in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa alone. That number is bound to be much larger if you count the entire country, and is bound to grow even larger.
Hopefully these will be short-term displacements, but they are tragic – and unnecessary – displacements nonetheless. As commenters have already pointed out, there is nothing ‘natural’ about this disaster. It is entirely human made. People die not because it rains, they die because they do not have the means to cope with the rains. They do not have the means because of poverty and maldevelopment. These are preventable deaths and preventable displacement. The question is only whether we have the will to prevent.
The dead have unfortunately gone already. It is too late for us to act to help them. But let us do whatever we can to help those whose lives have been shattered by these floods. They have little recourse to a national social security net. And we have no excuse not to act.
As we announced yesterday, ATP will be sending all of its revenue to relief agencies working with the poor hit by these flood. We urge our readers to do the same. We are sending our contributions to the Edhi Foundation, but please send yours wherever you feel best, and please also share with us and our readers ideas about what you think are the best ways to help those displaced by these rains.
More details on this calamity here; and a pictorial post of the misery it has brought, here.
Oh God what kind of people ruling Govt of Pakistan.
In this Devastating Situation:
1. President Zardari is going to visit UK.
2. Prime Minister Gilani doing Political addresses in Sargodha for election.
3. Janab Rehman Malik must be thinking about how to prove Taliban’s link with this incident.
Mere Rab ka Quran Kitna Sacha or Pak hai, its written in the wholy quran that Jo Qaum Allah ki Na Farman ho jae, Allah un per zalim hukmran nafiz kar deta hai. Allah ham sab ko is hidayat naseeb farma. Aameen.
Well, for those who believe in prayers when their life is on line…go pray all you want and lets see how a dam or stronger house is built by itself…while other nations actually do something to solve their weather related problems. And when other nations are capable of living through such storms, pray to God for their destruction and call them “Kafir” and feel good about yourself that this is a test from God and you will pass it and go to heaven and others are just materialistic people who are below your foot and will burn in hell!
We should first realize that we DO NOT have the resources to either build dams OR do anything about the displaced people.. or to save them from any other calamity (we just allocated 500 Billion Rupees for our Kashmiri brothers as they are more important blah blah blah… )
Now we have only two choices..
1) Pray to Allah
2) Beg aid money from our “enemy” USA..
3) Pray to Allah that our “enemy” USA gives us some aid money
Then when we get something from choice No. (2) or (3),
use choice No. (1) to make sure the aid reaches the needy..
and if nothing of the above works.. really stop counting the death toll and move on with ur life..
As Prof. Najam points out, there is nothing “natural” about these deaths and destructions. This is about poverty and lack of development. All of this should be prevented and can be with development.
But clearly from these comments, the first enemy of Pakistan is always the jahil mullah!
today I just watching news and I hear the comments from the people flood destroyed area that Pakistani goverment never do any thing and never take interest to help those people. What the hell is that? And our media only talking about air blue crash in Islamabad ? and no one notice when flood ready to destroy the house and kill the people. Any way may Allah save Pakistan
When I feel I am Pakistani