IT was nature’s fury compounded by long-standing human apathy. The trail of destruction wreaked by a mini-cyclone, described by the Met office as the third worst in Pakistan’s history, killed over 40 people and left more than 200 injured across Peshawar, Mardan and Nowshera districts on Sunday.

Most of the death and injuries were caused by mud brick homes collapsing, their fragile infrastructure unable to bear the brunt of the high-velocity winds and torrential rain.

In scenes of utter chaos exacerbated by a power blackout, with downed billboards, and uprooted electricity poles and trees blocking the roads, rescue operations were hampered and medical assistance to victims delayed.

Standing wheat crop ready for harvesting in the affected districts has reportedly been destroyed. With more rains forecast, the people’s miseries may not yet be over.

No one can argue that ‘freak’ weather phenomena are a challenge to manage. However, for a country that has suffered through five floods in five consecutive years, we are no longer strangers to extreme weather and there have been more than enough such calamities for relevant bodies to get their act together.

Why then is there still no early warning system in place that should have given people in the path of the cyclone adequate time to take precautionary measures, and for the state to extend its assistance to them in doing so?

While it is important to repair infrastructure and pay compensation post-disaster, it is extremely short-sighted not to invest in technologically advanced systems that could mitigate the loss of life and property.

Moreover, in what has become a depressingly familiar pattern, lack of coordination by the provincial disaster management authority, district administrations and municipal bodies — in the immediate aftermath of the storm and the following day — managed to propel what was an emergency into a full-blown catastrophe.

Even the day after the storm, mayhem reigned on the flooded streets with traffic policemen making feeble attempts in some locations to open blocked drains while the municipal authorities were nowhere to be seen.

In that respect, Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital has at least absorbed some of the lessons afforded by virtue of it being the principal medical facility in an area that unfortunately has repeatedly been the target of large-scale terrorist attacks.

While the overall quality of care could be better, the initial response procedures are much improved, and were adequate this time as well.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2015

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