It is almost as if the authorities at all levels find out every year anew that we live in a monsoonal climate, and are thus the subject of floods. This monsoon, the very beginning has been marked by many deaths, which should have been avoided had the authorities taken the proper amount of care. Perhaps the problem can be seen in the fact that the main government agency responsible for dealing with these issues, the local bodies, are nowhere in place. The provincial government is not holding elections to them, and is not carrying out the necessary municipal functions. One of the most basic issues is vetting plans for new neighbourhoods to ensure that they are not liable to flooding. Instead, once a place is well and truly established as prone to flooding, there are large sums spent (in lucrative awards of contracts) to solve the problem. Another function which the provincial government ducks is to inspect buildings. Because buildings are dilapidated, house collapses are increasing fly frequent, causing loss of precious lives.
The failure to drain floodwater for prolonged periods of time also means that foundations are undermined, and the buildings on top of them rendered more liable to collapse. Another danger that is observed is that of electrocution. LESCO seems to have developed a preventive strategy, that of simply shutting down the grid, but that seems a bit like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It does not help that power shutdowns also mean the shutting down of the water supply, which is a little ironic considering that so much rainwater is around. As the weather is extremely humid, especially just after the rains which have caused the flooding and the consequent power shutdown, tempers are understandably frayed.
What is not so easily understandable is that the authorities seem to hope that ignoring the problem will make the problem go away. It will not. In fact, it will only get worse. The initial effect of global warming (spread over some decades) is to intensify existing weather patterns, which means that the monsoon will get progressively worse every year. Floods like last year’s are likely to become increasingly frequent. Therefore it only makes sense for the authorities to make the assumption that these unusual weather patterns form the new normal, rather than exceptions.
