70 per cent of Pakistan is underwater due to massive floods
HURIN EIN
SHAH ALAM – Pakistan is facing one of the worst flooding in a decade with 70 per cent of its land affected leaving over 30 million flood victims.
The massive floods had caused substantial damages to the people's houses, agricultural land and livestock.
Local engineer and backpacker Tehsin Razi had went out of his way to extend help to the victims affected by the flood.
He said it had been especially hard for the people living in the affected plain areas such as Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan as the flood robbed them of their shelter, food and drinkable water.
“It will take months for all the flood waters to be drained away and once it all drained, there will be no human settlement or infrastructure.
“Everything has been swept away by the floods,” he said.
He said it was hard for the people to remain positive when hit by such natural disaster as most of the victims were from rural areas and highly depended on their agricultural land and livestock.
He added that the floods had occured during the peak season of harvesting, causing farmers to not be able to carry out cultivation for the next six months
Moreover, with possible infections and diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, skin infections and eye infections, he said made it all the more impossible for the people to have a positive mindset.
He said the Pakistani government had not been doing enough to mitigate this disaster but there were a number of social workers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have been trying their best to help.
Even so, he said it was not enough as the scale of the disaster was massive, thus the government needed to step up and prepare master plans to facilitate and rehabilitate the flood victims.
“If our government was competent enough, we would never be facing this,” he said.
He added that Malaysians wanted to offer help to the flood victims, involvements with the Pakistani government should be avoided.
“Never involve our government in any of your relief activities.
“Our government is a gang of thieves and world-renowned corrupt people. They will eat everything that you give them,” he said.
He also said the people were aware that the flood was caused by climate change as Pakistan was the only country which contained 30 per cent of the world’s overall glacial mass.
Thus, he said flash floods would happen because of glacial outbursts from global warming.
“Pakistan received 600 times more rains compared to the previous years so the country is paying the price of the global system of capitalism and global warming,” he said.
He also said if Pakistan’s lands were divided according to its topography, there would be two types of floods.
One was due to cloud bursts and glacial lake outburst flow (GLOF) which often occurred on mountainous areas while the other was caused by overflowing of rivers and water channels.
