On 8 October 2005, a strong earthquake hit Pakistan’s northern region. It killed thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. The devastation was so big that it shook the conscience of the whole world, including those living in Karachi. The largest number of helping hands came from our city, where volunteers from all strata of the society rushed to extend any sort of assistance in the rescue and relief operation. We even hosted many affected families.
But nobody blamed the Musharraf government for this disaster, even though eventually it was learnt that his prime minister Shaukat Aziz literally did what he had said, turned this disaster into an opportunity.
A year earlier, when another earthquake had hit Thailand, no demands of the dismissal of its government were made: it was a natural disaster and that is what it was taken as. The ensuing tsunami, when it hit India and Sri Lanka, did not result in instant calls for change of regime in those countries. All it did was a prompt response from the world to rush to the help of those hit by the tragedy.
Right now, Karachi is suffering from the record downpour and since the city was never planned like a tropical one, it is caught unprepared to deal with the calamity like this. True, real estate developments in Gadap Town (Saadi Town, DHA II, Bahria Town, Taeser Town etc.) have blocked the natural water courses and the water, not finding its regular way, has flooded those neighborhoods including the Motorway there. But the rainfall is historic in nature. It broke 100 years’ records two days back and it continues and promises to keep continuing for another week even today. It is a natural disaster.
But what has been the response so far? All rescue operations are limited to locals helping each other. Apart from that, the most vocal reaction is blaming the Sindh government, demanding its dismissal, and—as the aviation minister suggested the other day—hanging of “the corrupt”.
Let us see if any government hand can be found in the present disaster, natural even though it is.
The Pakistan Peoples Party, perhaps knowing that it did not have enough clean people to implement a development plan all over the province, have kept such projects to its Sindh government, where it could at least ensure that even a little development work that is carried out would not cause it any embarrassment. They could not afford to go for devolution. So, no mega projects to counter any rain emergency were carried out. Looking at the geographical positioning of our city, we are not considered a tropical city. But in the last two decades or so, the weather of our city has changed a lot, perhaps part of the global warming phenomenon, and the planners are still not considering this change.
The administration of the city is still in the hands of the local Karachi Municipal Corporation and the six (now seven) district administrations. KMC has the capacity and the funding to implement a simple municipal operation of cleaning nullahs and ensuring that the rain water finds its way to the sea. The mayor, Waseem Akhtar, has admitted that he has the authority and the finances to carry out the basic tasks. But the KMC has failed to do much. On the contrary, his party can be found at the root causes of the blocking of such nullahs, selling plots of lands to poor people there.
National Disaster Management Authority was invited to help the Sindh government, but the results are obvious for all to observe. A meeting was held between the military officials, the Sindh government, and the representatives of the MQM and the PTI, the two opposition parties from the city. It ended with a promise by all sides to work together. Such promises usually mean that nobody would now take the lead, especially in the presence of the armed forces officials. And the army would definitely be right in eventually blaming the civilian government for not doing anything.
This still is a natural disaster. The governments, both provincial and local, did not help in reducing it but they did not cause it. The rain came to us when we did not know how to handle it. We were never a tropical city where such thunderstorms are a routine. People who give examples of the European and American cities (or even Islamabad) where such rain would not cause any disturbances miss out on this one point. We are prepared to act like a city we were in the 70s and 80s. Rainwise that is. But to expect from us that overnight we would become a Kuala Lumpur or a Bangkok is asking for too much. Remember, fully knowing that we sit on the joining point of three fault lines meaning that any earthquake would mean annihilation of the entire city, we have very little buildings that are constructed to handle any tremors. Now that is criminal negligence, Not being ready for rain comes naturally to us: rain of this proportion is a new thing for us and if we are caught again in such situation in another five years, only then we can blame our governments for not preparing for this disaster.
But of course, we want to blame somebody. So, there is that NDMA. Go shoot them.
