2005: Earthquake survivors walk on a road littered with boulders and rocks in Sanghar, about eight km north of Balakot. Despite army action to reopen ravaged roads to remote towns and villages, many remained cut off for days — AFP file photo

The maps are all red, yellow and pink; earthquake, flood risk and landslide. Turn the page to chapters on the hazard and risk profile of these disasters, and district after district is rendered in the colour of crisis. This is the Road Map for Disaster Risk Management, 2014 -2019 published by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

When it comes to disasters, the PDMA’s prognosis is that all 26 districts of the province are disaster prone; KP, it says, is “a province burdened with an alarming and diverse portfolio of natural and human-induced disasters, including an ongoing complex emergency.”

A decade ago, only 13 districts in the province were declared as disaster-prone; now, the entire province has been declared vulnerable in the context of hydro-metrological phenomenon and seismic activities.

KP is no stranger to natural and man-made disasters, of course. Nor is there any dearth of plans and strategies to deal with them on paper. But while the Road Map reinforces what has been established for a long time – often at the cost of tremendous suffering to people over the years – just where exactly do these plans translate into action is far from visible.

All 26 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been declared “disaster-prone” by the PDMA but is anyone listening?

Take the early warning system, for example – a mechanism at the heart of any disaster response plan. Despite decades of disasters, the province still relies on manual gauging of complex weather systems.

Even today, there are no radar systems in KP despite a realisation that weather systems have turned highly volatile due to climate change. The situation calls for a web of well-coordinated, alert mechanisms to allow for quick and timely responses in the event of a disaster.

Officials say at least four radars are required for KP and adjacent tribal regions to collect accurate information about hydro-metrological phenomenon. As things stand, a radar system that was installed in the southern district of Dera Ismail Khan back in 1999 does not work. Installation of a new radar system, costing Rs 300 million, is on the cards in Mardan District.

Meanwhile, the British-era Seismic Centre in Peshawar, which has been serving as the central Met Office for KP and Fata since 1970, relies on conventional tools for issuing daily weather update to PDMA and other concerned departments.

“When we map the disasters over the last 15 years, we see an alarming rise in the incidence of hydro-metrological phenomena — rain, floods, storms, droughts and cyclones etc,” says Mushtaq Ali Shah, director of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Meteorological Department.

A recent example of this is the twister (mini-cyclone) that wrecked havoc in the three districts of Peshawar, Nowshera and Charsadda on April 26, 2015, the first ever such occurrence in the history of the province.

But while it is notoriously hard — almost impossible — to predict twisters, the authorities couldn’t gauge the speed of the devastating twister in the worst affected areas either, because the facilities required were simply not available in Peshawar and other parts of the province.

Despite decades of disasters, the province still relies on manual gauging of complex weather systems.

The Met office recorded the speed of the twister at 110 kilometres per hour that killed 49 people, wounded 267 others and damaged around 1,600 houses within a few minutes.“The speed of the twister might be more than 110 kilometres per hour in the worst-affected area, [but we can’t be sure] because the department has no equipment in these particular areas,” says Shah.

Experts say that natural calamities could not be prevented and can happen anytime, but losses could be minimised to a greater extent by developing proper disaster risk-management plans and strategies.

“We can see uneven events during the past 10 to 15 years. Changes in the intensity and occurrence of hydro-meteorological phenomenon are clearly visible in Pakistan,” says the Met office director.

Indeed, there has been no let up in natural disasters striking KP over the past two decades: a windstorm at the speed of 120 kilometres per hour hit Dera Ismail Khan in 1999; 200mm rainfall was reported in Balakot (Hazara) in 2003; flash floods in Karak in 2004; earthquake in 2004; devastating earthquake in 2005; flash floods in Mardan in August 2006; flash floods in 2007; flash floods in Peshawar in 2008; and super floods in Malakand in 2010.

Major disasters that struck KP during the past 15 years claimed lives of over 30,685 people and damaged infrastructure worth billions of rupees. Infrastructure in affected areas of Hazara and Malakand divisions has not been reconstructed fully, while floods, avalanches and land sliding have become a routine phenomenon in Hazara, Malakand and southern districts of KP and Fata.

Despite the earthquake in 2005, it seems that lessons have not been learnt on how cope with medium and high category calamities.

Much of the headway that has been taking place in the province has come thanks to some foreign donors, who provided technical and financial assistance to the provincial government to build institutional and legal frameworks.

GIZ, the German donor agency, provided assistance to the government for building the headquarters of PDMA, to set up Rescue 1122, and to build the Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management (CDPM) at the University of Peshawar. The centre is now offering courses from diploma to doctorate levels.

“The earthquake in 2005 was an eye-opener for us,” remarks Mushtaq Ahmad Jan, director of the CDPM. “We have so many plans and strategies on paper, but they have not been implemented to minimise impacts of natural calamities.”

Jan explains that after the 2005 earthquake, new building codes were designed but these regulations were not even followed properly in the public sector. “Under the new building codes every concrete structure would be designed to resist earthquakes up to a magnitude of nine on the Richter Scale,” he says.

The CDPM director suggests that KP requires the most modern early warning system, proper land zoning, and a well-equipped Rescue 1122 service in all districts, but especially in high-risk zones. Unfortunately, he claims, the private sector, especially in Peshawar where multi-storey buildings are constructed, does not follow building codes. “Even fire fighting provisions are not installed in these buildings,” he says.

Despite many shortcomings, Jan sees improvement in the profile of KP and says that buildings in the earthquake-affected areas have been constructed according to the new codes. Similarly, the PDMA, which was established in 2008, has planned many activities to promote enhanced disaster preparedness and management. The Road Map for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2014-19 has been developed to identify and strategically plan for the urgent needs in disaster risk management.

Warehouses have been established in headquarters of all districts for storing emergency supplies. Disaster management units at the district level have been set up and assistant commissioners have been delegated additional powers of district disaster management officers. Seminars and workshops are also being organised to create awareness among general public.

But ultimately, in the absence of its own early warning system, the authority looks handicapped.

“A proposal is under consideration to request donors to help the provincial government get its own early warning system,” claims Latif-ur-Rehman, media and communication specialist at the PDMA.

If the scheme goes ahead, KP will no longer be forced to rely on the “poorly-equipped” federal meteorological department.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 24th, 2015

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