A crisis in the making

Is the monsoon season good news for everyone? Perhaps not!

The clouds have started bearing more rumbling water from the Arabian Sea and will soon approach the coastal belt of Sindh, which is a disaster-prone area. The monsoon season is generally welcomed throughout the country because of the pleasant weather it brings, but the flipside is that many areas like the coastal belt of Sindh will be flooded, resulting in the loss of both life and property.

The coastal belt of Thatta and Badin districts in the province was devastated by Cyclone A2 in 1999, which claimed more than 400 lives and left nothing behind for poor farmers and fisherfolk except deprivation. Noor Muhammad Themore, a social activist hailing from Thatta, recalls that the cyclone killed mostly young people, who were in the sea for fishing. Because they were the sole bread earners of their families, their relatives had to face unending hardships. Besides, the cyclone caused displacement of the people at a mass level -- the number of registered voters in Union Council Kar Malik Thatta decreased to only 5,000 after the tragedy, while it was more than 15,000 earlier.

On July 29, 2006, precipitation hit the coastal belt of Thatta and Karachi, which disturbed the routine life of the people, as well as damaged both property and crops. In June 2007, Cyclone Yemyin -- having a speed of 220-kilometre per hour -- hit Karachi and Thatta. It claimed four lives and about 2.5 million people were affected by it. After the cyclone, the affected people were without shelter, food, safe drinking water and life-saving drugs.
The cyclone proved to be a tragedy for many people who are yet to resume their normal lives. "I could only manage to save my family. Everything else -- my fishing boat, my house and all my possessions -- was washed away with the cyclone," says Rajab Themore, a resident of the Kalkan Chani village in Thatta. Rajab does not have enough sources to bring his life back to the normal and he is left with no choice but to face the hardships of life.

Cyclones have both short- and long-term effects on development. They destroy the infrastructure -- schools, health centres, roads, etc -- and, thus, have a direct bearing on the economy. It is estimated that after Cyclone Yemyin, about 70 percent annual income of the poor fisherfolk and farmers was lost, which further increased inequality and social exclusion in the area. In short, cyclones hit poverty-ridden fisherfolk, farmers and minorities, especially children and women, the worst.

It is being feared that the forthcoming monsoon season will further exacerbate the ongoing food shortage. The people living on the coastal belt are worried and are undergoing a psychological trauma because of such fears. The increasing number of fishing vessels, the extensive use of harmful nets and fishing by deep-sea trawlers have already resulted in economic hardships for the poor fisherfolk of the coastal belt. They do not bring much catch from the sea any more and whatever they fish is not enough to meet their needs, because the prices of major food items have escalated in the recent past.
I do not know what will happen to us, says Noor Machi, a fisherman of Deh Allah Bano, Karachi. "The markets are overcrowded with workers, the catch of fish is decreasing gradually, the prices of major food items are increasing and every year monsoon rains play havoc with us," he adds. The monsoon rains bring problems with them all over the world,. With the passage of time, most countries have developed early disaster systems and mechanisms that help them to abate the risk to human lives, as well as socio-economic losses.

After the 2005 earthquake in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the NWFP, the government established the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). Similar authorities were also set up at the provincial level and later devolved at the district level. It was believed that a District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) would be more effective than its provincial counterpart, provided it remains independent of the NDMA. Sadly, however, the DDMAs have failed to protect precious human lives, mainly because the administrative machinery at the district level remains even unaware of the monsoon contingency plan.

The district coordination officer (DCO) is responsible for managing the DDMA. "My personal experience tells me that most DCOs do not even know about the DDMA," says Ziauddin Abro, emergency coordinator with ActionAid-Pakistan. If DCOs do not know about the DDMA, then how would they do the hazard mapping, vulnerability assessment and resource mapping, which are integral parts of a disaster contingency plan?
The DCOs, as heads of the DDMAs, are responsible for preparing the monsoon contingency plans -- they are supposed to know how many schools, ambulances and other resources are available to them. "I once approached a DCO in one of the coastal belt districts of Sindh and asked him about the DDMA. Not only did he not know about any such authority, he was also unaware of the number of functional ambulances in his district," Zia laments.

The preparation of a monsoon contingency plan requires consultation with all the stakeholders. As part of the administrative system, nazims of union councils should also be involved in the consultation process. "The monsoon season is around the corner and the Meteorological Department has warned us about the impeding danger, but no higher authority has consulted me as yet," says Mubarak Sanghu, nazim of Union Council Gabo Pat, Karachi.

"The DCO has held no consultative meeting to discuss the available physical resources and funds, and to prepare a contingency plan for the forthcoming monsoon season," comments a town health officer, who is currently serving in Karachi, on condition of anonymity. "I have never been invited to a monsoon contingency planning meeting," informs Ghulam Qadir Talpur, a district government official dealing with revenue. "We have always been kept in the dark. The DCO does not bother to consult us on any issue. How can the monsoon contingency plan be an exception?" asks Saeed Ghani, leader of the opposition in the City District Government Karachi.

Only civil society organisations have informed the people, especially fisherfolk, living on the coastal belt about the impeding danger, while no district government official has come to share the situation with them. This shows that there still are many gaps in disaster preparedness and management at the district level. In this scenario, the government ideally should establish an autonomous body for disaster management at the provincial level. The monsoon season has already started, but the responsible people have done nothing noteworthy. If our government has done nothing concrete in this connection, maybe the people should do something on self-help basis. Given Pakistan's context, this is the only strategy to manage an emergency in an effective manner. By Abdullah Khoso, Published with the News International