Flood Response

[ghazi52]

.,.,

Cash crop suffers tremendous losses from floods​

35% of standing rice crop was damaged in Sindh and 29% in south Punjab

Our Correspondent
September 09, 2022

---

LAHORE: Pakistan’s cash crop suffered billions of rupees’ worth of losses caused by flood devastation, particularly in Sindh and South Punjab, said Shahzad Ali Malik, Chairman of the Pakistan Hi-Tech Hybrid Seed Association (PHHSA).

Quoting figures acquired from the United Nations World Food Organisation (WFO) he said, “We are estimating around 200,000 to 300,000 tons of rice lost in these floods which will be reflected in Pakistan’s exports.”

“Pakistan is slogging through one of the most devastating disasters in the country’s history on account of floods that left a third of land under water,” lamented the PHHSA chairman.
Explaining that the country’s agriculture sector remained the most affected, he said, “35% of the standing rice crop was damaged in Sindh and 29% in South Punjab, while other rice growing areas were also partially hit by excessive heat waves which affected the yields.”

“The deadly floods destroyed vast hectares of cotton and rice crops, a key source of employment and forex for the nation,” he highlighted.

Quoting preliminary reports from WFO, he said “Pakistan could lose at least a tenth of rice output to floods.”

Pakistan, the world’s fourth largest rice exporter, suffered extensive damage to agriculture, the mainstay of its economy, as floods ravaged large swathes of its farmland, he bemoaned.

According to Malik, Pakistan is forecasted to have lost 10% of its 2022 estimated rice production of around 8.7 million tons, making it difficult to achieve the rice exports target.

He demanded the government provide interest-free loans to all flood-hit farmers across the country as a top priority, besides provision of all agricultural inputs, at a highly subsidised rate which includes fuel, seed, fertiliser and electricity to afford some solace to this aggrieved section of society.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9th, 2022.

 

[FuturePAF]

You remember Huey discussion? Need hueys.

Is this suppose to be on this thread? If so, I assume you mean even assessing the damage is beyond our current capabilities.

 

[ghazi52]

,..,.,

https://twitter.com/x/status/1567920699439816714

 

[air marshal]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1568294531996729348

 

[Signalian]

Is this suppose to be on this thread? If so, I assume you mean even assessing the damage is beyond our current capabilities.

It was a different thread where you mentioned if Pakistan should manufacture uh-1

 

[Jango]

,..,.,

https://twitter.com/x/status/1567920699439816714

That's the greenest Sukkur airport I have ever seen!

 

[ghazi52]

,.,.,

https://twitter.com/x/status/1568579719875919872

 

[ghazi52]

Dadu, Sindh

 

[ghazi52]

.,.,

https://twitter.com/x/status/1568539174478778368

 

[ghazi52]

.,,.

 

[khansaheeb]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02508069708686712?journalCode=rwin20

Original Articles

Development of Flood Hazards Policy in the Indus River Basin of Pakistan, 1947–1996​

Daanish Mustafa
&
James L. Wescoat Jr.
Pages 238-244 | Published online: 22 Jan 2009

• Download citation
• https://doi.org/10.1080/02508069708686712

• References
• Citations
• Metrics
• Reprints & Permissions
• Get access

ABSTRACT
Since independence in 1947, floods in the Indus River Basin in Pakistan have claimed more than 7,000 lives and caused massive infrastructure and crop losses. To date, flood damage reduction has received limited attention relative to the irrigation and hydropower subsectors in the basin. Nonstructural approaches to flood hazard mitigation have lagged behind engineering approaches. This article retraces the development offlood policies in Pakistan, from an early situation of risk acceptance to more recent strategies of risk management. It shows that an underlying problem, and future aim, for flood policy will lie in giving greater attention to mitigating social vulnerability to flood hazards in the basin.

 

[ghazi52]

.,.,.,

‘Starving’ girl dies at makeshift shelter in Rohri​

The Newspaper's Correspondent
September 10, 2022

SUKKUR: A six-year-old girl reportedly died of starvation and illness at a makeshift shelter near a filling station on the National Highway in Patni area on Friday, sparking protest by over 200 rain-hit families against .Rohri mukhtiarkar, who failed to “provide them food and other relief goods in time”

The protesters told media persons that they had been waiting for official aid since they had reached Sukkur from Jacobabad district after the torrential destroyed everything they had.

The officials came only to collect data but neither of them sent them any relief items such as food, tents, mosquito nets and other necessary goods so that they could feed their starving children and protect their families against diseases, they said.

They said that no medical team had visited them to check their children and women, who were suffering from various diseases after the rains. “When our children started starving, we went to the mukhtiarkar’s office in Rohri for aid but we received neither food, nor tents. In the meanwhile, the six-year-old Razia daughter of Khalid Khoso died of starvation and disease,” said the girl’s father.

When the news about the girl’s death spread, local people and former member of Khoso Ittehad Farman Khoso helped the family in the burial and provided ration bags to all the rain-stricken families, said the protesters.

 

[Wood]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1568133253801951232

 

[ghazi52]

,.,.,.

'Nobody knows where their village is': New inland sea swamps Pakistan​

According to the Sindh government, over 100,000 people have been displaced by this new body of water​

By AFP
September 10, 2022

Members of Pakistan Navy personnel take part in a rescue operation in flooded Mehar city after heavy monsoon rains in Dadu district, Sindh province on September 9, 2022. — AFP

MEHAR: From a hastily erected embankment protecting Mehar city, mosque minarets and the price board of a gas station poke above a vast lake that has emerged, growing to tens of kilometres wide.

Beyond this shoreline in southern Sindh, hundreds of villages and swathes of farmland are lost beneath the water — destroyed by floods that have affected nearly a third of Pakistan.

"Nobody knows where their village is anymore, the common man can no longer recognise his own home," Ayaz Ali, whose village is submerged under nearly seven metres (23 feet) of water, told AFP.
The Sindh government says more than 100,000 people have been displaced by this new body of water, brought by record rains and the Indus River overflowing its banks.

Across the country, about 33 million people have been affected by the flooding, nearly two million homes and businesses destroyed, 7,000 kilometres (1.3 miles) of roads washed away and 256 bridges knocked out.

A bus conductor with a sharp memory, Ali acts as a navigator for the navy, identifying each submerged village by the pattern of electricity pylons and distinct tree lines.

Navy volunteers cruise the waters on two lifeboats delivering aid donated by locals, ferrying people in need of medical care back to the city.

With Ali's help, they search out patches of high ground where families still shelter, refusing to evacuate despite a desperate situation worsened by the scorching heat.
"Their homes and belongings are so precious to them," said one serviceman, who asked not to be named, looking out at the expanse of water.

"When I joined the navy, I could never have imagined doing this," he added.

Engine cut, the boat navigates slowly through the tops of trees, and heads duck under power lines ahead of a hamlet of crumbling houses encircled by water.

'How can we leave?'​

This time, dozens of people are waiting.

Many still refuse to leave their homes, concerned their livestock — all that they have left — will be stolen or will die, and fearing a worse situation at the makeshift relief camps that have sprung up all over the country.

"Our life and death is linked with our village, how can we leave?" said Aseer Ali, kneedeep in water, refusing to let his wife, who is eight months pregnant, evacuate.

Flood-affected people gather by an embankment in Mehar city after heavy monsoon rains in Dadu district, Sindh province on September 9, 2022. — AFP


Some relent — men with fever, toddlers with diarrhoea, and an elderly woman silent in her anguish — are among those helped onto the boat that carries double its capacity on a weighed-down journey back to the city.

Among them is a young mother who had only recently lost her newborn when the water rose around her home last week.

She sways dizzily from the effects of heat stroke, her two-year-old child also distressed by the burning midday sun — both repeatedly drenched in water by a navy serviceman.

'Immense need'​

A new 10-kilometre mud embankment has so far held back the flood from Mehar city, with a population of hundreds of thousands.

But the city has swelled with displaced victims who over the past three weeks have fled to makeshift camps in car parks, schools and on motorways.

Internally displaced flood-affected women carry water pots at a makeshift camp in Mehar city after heavy monsoon rains in Dadu district, Sindh province on September 9, 2022. — AFP

"More families keep arriving at the camp. They are in a terrible condition," Muhammad Iqbal, from the Alkhidmat Foundation — a Pakistan-based humanitarian organisation that is the only welfare presence at the city's largest camp, which hosts about 400 people.

"There is an immense need for drinking water and toilet facilities," he added, but they may have to wait longer — the government's priority is to drain the flooded areas.

Pressure has heaped on swollen dams and reservoirs, forcing engineers to make intentional breaches to save densely populated areas at the cost of worsening the situation in the countryside.

"They all have gone all out to protect the city but not the poor people of the rural areas," said Umaida Solangi, a 30-year-old perched with her children on a wooden bed at a city camp.

 

[ghazi52]

.,.

Miftah estimates losses at $18.5 Billion​