Pakistan’s floods demonstrate the damages of climate change

Photo by Rameen Farrukh ’23.
Floods in Pakistan have displaced many and caused severe damage to the country’s infrastructure.

By Anoushka Kuswaha ’24

News Section Editor

Content warning: This article discusses mass death.

Unprecedented rainfall from the summer monsoon season has caused heavy flooding in one-third of Pakistan, according to an article by Nature Magazine. The Worldbank’s Climate Change Knowledge Portal describes a monsoon as a summer rainy season typically lasting from June to September in Pakistan. Nature Magazine reports that the flooding has displaced millions, leaving them in urgent need of food, shelter and medical attention.

According to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund Pakistan has received unprecedented levels of monsoon rains and floods. The rainfall has caused swelling of the Indus River, creating immensely long lakes, CNN reported.

Pakistan is also home to the most glaciers in the world outside of the polar regions. Due to warming climates and higher rainfall, Pakistan’s glaciers are increasingly prone to higher levels of melting, contributing further to flooding, as stated by CNN. 

The deadly floods have engulfed houses, roads and infrastructure, massively impacting sources of livelihood. Due to the flood’s’ effect on land and infrastructure, the Pakistani government expects a decrease in its gross domestic product growth for the fiscal year of 2022-2023 to three percent instead of the initially-projected five percent, according to Reuters. According to Rameen Farrukh ’24, a Mount Holyoke student from Pakistan, the floods have wiped away the entirety of some families’ material possessions. 

PBS reported that upwards of 33 million people have been affected by the flooding. Additionally, a statement by UNICEF calling for donations and aid states that more than 1,100 people have lost their lives due to monsoon rains. The PBS report explained that the Pakistani government has made international appeals for aid through the U.N. to repair the many damages the flooding has caused to the country’s population, infrastructure and economy. According to Reuters, these appeals to the U.N. call for $160 million in aid. According to Al Jazeera, several countries have shown interest in providing aid and relief to Pakistan. Pakistani officials stated that “more than 50 special flights carrying aid have arrived so far in the country and more are scheduled in the coming days.” 

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres arrived in Pakistan early morning on Friday, Sept. 9, to show support for the Pakistani public in the face of what the U.N. describes as a dire humanitarian crisis, UN News reported. The secretary-general stated that he was “struck by the unquantifiable depths of human suffering” he saw during his visit. 

Guterres reaffirmed his claim that the cause of the crisis is closely linked to climate change, according to an article from UN News. Reuters reported that Pakistan’s government, based in the capital city of Islamabad, echoed these sentiments, blaming climate change for the devastating level of flooding. 

The pledges to support Pakistan by various international governments have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated, Farrukh expressed in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. Farrukh is from the city of Multan in the Punjab province of Pakistan. However, Farrukh expressed doubts regarding the Pakistani government’s ability to fully utilize the aid provided, even if it should remain consistent.

Farrukh maintains a steadfast faith in the work of private Pakistani organizations to collect donations. Farrukh’s father has been deployed by the Pakistani government to coordinate the distribution of medical and food supplies in the city of Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab Province. He is also working to establish medical camps and food banks in the district. 

Due to the urgency of the crisis, evacuations are still taking place in “high alert areas in the district,” Farrukh said. Damage to infrastructure, like electricity and utility poles, has meant a lack of contact between Farrukh and her immediate family in Pakistan. Whatever contact has occurred has allowed Farrukh and her family members to gain awareness of the supplies in highest demand, such as “clothes, dry food supplies, baby food, sanitary supplies and tents,” Farrukh explained. 

In a statement by UN News, Secretary-General Guterres described the floods in Pakistan as “climate carnage” and encouraged “massive and urgent financial support for Pakistan.” The Secretary-General added that aid in this time of need was not a matter of “solidarity or generosity” but rather “a question of justice.” Guterres encouraged governments worldwide to consider hastening their actions toward preventing climate change. “Let’s stop sleepwalking toward the destruction of our planet by climate change,” Guterres concluded as he launched the funding appeal. 

In response to how Pakistani students on campus can best be supported at this time, Farrukh stated, “I think being mindful [that] these crises affect different people … in different ways. Some students — if not directly impacted by the flood — are indirectly affected by having their farms and crops flooded … [which] definitely affects the annual income of their family. … For some people, their parents are medical professionals or government officials who are actively working for the flood victims. Kindness is the answer.”,

A situation report from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs published on Aug. 26, 2022, states that the flooding affected 2 million acres of crops and 793,900 heads of livestock in Pakistan. CNN stated that further secondary damages are consistently emerging, such as difficulties with providing medical care in the wake of damage to over 800 health care institutions being damaged, with around 180 institutions closed due to permanent damage. The lack of medical institutions has created a burgeoning health crisis in the country, with severe outbreaks of “diarrheal diseases, skin infections, respiratory tract infections, malaria and dengue in the aftermath of the floods, as well as a litany of waterborne diseases,” as stated by World Health Organization Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in an article by CNN. 

The floods come at a time of political and economic turmoil, a sentiment echoed by young Pakistanis like Farrukh, who believe that while the government “knows the high alert areas that are usually flooded during the monsoon season in Pakistan [they have] not been able to take any solid initiative in preventing populations [from residing] in the dangerous areas. Dams need to be built, but many projects have been hindered due to political unrest and change in governments over the past decade [or] so.”

Flood and Fire Risks Are Frequently Undisclosed

Photo courtesy of Freephotos.com.

By  Helen Gloege ’23
Staff Writer

Since 2016, over 1 million natural disaster displacements have occurred each year in the U.S. It is predicted that the number of people who will be displaced by natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires will increase. By 2100, 6 feet of sea-level rise could force 13.1 million Americans to relocate. Climate change will soon factor into homebuyers’ and renters’ choices of where to live, but most are not warned about flood or wildfire risk in their new homes. They often pay for the resulting damages financially and beyond, in lives lost and the toll on physical and mental health that can last for years to come. The annual number of floods and wildfires that exceed $1 billion in damage has increased in recent years. Between 2015 and September 2020, there have been 28 of these disasters in the United States.

Fire prevention is on the minds of those who live in Western states, and there is political division on how best to prevent fires. The governors of California, Oregon and Washington have all indicated that climate change is the reason for the fires. President Donald Trump, however, has argued that the fires resulted from how the states manage their forests. 

Scientists have pointed toward forest thinning and controlled burns as solutions. However, complicating this is the influx of people moving into rural areas or building vacation cabins in the woods, leading to populated small acreages. This means that, if controlled burns were to escape, they would most likely move onto someone’s property.

Millions of people living in the West have moved into fire-prone landscapes with little warning of risk from government, real estate agents or sellers. Between 1992 and 2015, about 60 million homes were within less than a mile of a wildfire, and that number has since increased. 

Only Oregon and California require wildfire risk to be disclosed to residents. Frequently, this disclosure amounts to a few lines buried in hundreds of pages of text. In Oregon, homebuyers didn’t see the word “wildfire” mentioned in a disclosure statement recorded during a sale, only a line that said the property was in the “forestland-urban interface.” In California, there is a special form for disclosing natural hazards that states risk level, but these rules are only enforced in some parts of the state. If this applies, homeowners are responsible for clearing flammable brush and dry vegetation that would create a defensible space between the house and the fire. 

California lawmakers passed a bill in 2019 that increases wildfire disclosure. This law includes that, starting in 2021, sellers must inform the buyer if they are following flammable brush rules and provide a list of potential ways their house may be susceptible to fires. Starting in 2025, sellers must say if they have completed retrofits to make the house more fire-resistant. 

Even if states did want to disclose wildfire risk, the information isn’t always available. Wildfire risk mapping involves detailed modeling because fire behavior fluctuates greatly. In 2020, the U.S. Forest Service released new maps showing community risk nationwide, but the maps aren’t scaled to use for individual properties. According to NPR, “Insurance companies have done the most detailed risk analysis but most homeowners won’t find out unless the insurance rates go up or their policy is canceled.” Additionally, most existing wildfire maps don’t reflect the added risk from climate change.

The decision made to build in these fire-prone areas is usually made by developers and local officials. They are frequently guided by large-scale zoning plans that don’t take wildfire risks into account. These local governments are financially incentivized to allow new development in risky areas. Homeowners need to know wildfire risks to allow them to make informed decisions. Homebuyers will also be more likely to have evacuation plans and take fireproofing steps. They will understand that preparing for wildfires isn’t a one-time job. 

Wildfire risk is not the only natural disaster with a lack of transparency. Growing research has suggested that flood risk also falls under this category, despite the growing risk due to climate change. There are an estimated 15 million properties that have a significant risk of flooding. Between 1980 and 2017, about 80 percent of presidential disaster declarations were for events that involved flooding; however, only 29 states require flood disclosure laws. The 21 states that don’t require information include some of the most vulnerable, like Florida, Virginia and Massachusetts. 

Residents of states that do require flood risk disclosure frequently don’t know they live in harm’s way until it is too late. In 27 of the 29 states that require disclosure, potential buyers receive information about flood risk after they make an offer on the house. The information often isn’t clear as most states’ requirements involve a single check box if the property is on an official flood plain. This may not be an accurate indicator of flood potential, as official flood maps have hard lines between areas with high flood risk and little to no flood risk. 

In addition, nearly one-third of all flood damage occurs outside of official flood plains. After Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in 2017, a law was passed requiring sellers to tell buyers if the house is in a flood zone and if they had flood insurance. Similar attempts in other states have stalled due to a fear of driving down property values. Indeed, research has suggested that disclosing flood risk may cause a decrease in property values by about 4 percent.

Future and current homebuyers may not listen to maps or data. However, the clear dissemination of information regarding fire and flood risk would allow the increasing number of homeowners moving into high-risk areas to understand the possible dangers and take precautions by purchasing flood insurance or making a house more fire-resistant.