Rescuers and family members waded through knee-deep floodwaters in search of the body of one-year-old Zara. The infant was swept away by devastating flash floods, following the discovery of her parents and three siblings in the preceding days.
“We were overwhelmed by a sudden surge of water. I ascended to the roof and implored them to join me,” recounted Arshad, Zara’s grandfather, as he gestured towards the dirt road in the village of Sambrial, northern Punjab, where the tragedy unfolded in August. His family was unable to reach him in time, as the relentless current claimed all six lives.
Monsoon season regularly brings catastrophic flooding to Pakistan.
This year, the monsoon season began in late June, and within three months, the inundations had claimed the lives of over 1,000 individuals. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that at least 6.9 million people have been adversely affected.
The South Asian nation is grappling with the dire consequences of climate change, despite contributing a mere 1% to global greenhouse gas emissions.
To document the impact, the BBC traversed the nation for three months, from the northern mountains to the southern plains. The effects of climate change manifested differently in each province.
However, one common thread emerged: the most vulnerable communities bore the brunt of the disaster.
The team encountered individuals who had lost their homes, livelihoods, and loved ones, resigned to facing similar hardships in the next monsoon season.
The monsoon floods initially struck the north, with global warming manifesting in its most recognizable form in Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan.
The region, nestled within the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Hindu Kush mountain ranges, is home to over 7,000 glaciers. Due to rising temperatures, these glaciers are rapidly melting.
This phenomenon can lead to catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), where meltwater accumulates into glacial lakes that suddenly breach their boundaries. Thousands of villages are at risk.
During the summer, hundreds of homes were destroyed, and roads were severely damaged by landslides and flash floods.
Issuing timely warnings for these GLOFs is challenging due to the remote terrain and limited mobile service. Pakistan and the World Bank are collaborating to improve an early warning system, but its effectiveness is often hampered by the mountainous landscape.
Community spirit is proving to be a valuable asset. When shepherd Wasit Khan awoke to surging waters laden with ice and debris, he rushed to an area with better mobile connectivity. He promptly began alerting as many villagers as possible.
“I instructed everyone to abandon their belongings, evacuate their homes, and prioritize the safety of their wives, children, and elderly relatives,” he told BBC Urdu’s Muhammad Zubair.
Thanks to his efforts, dozens of lives were saved.
In the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the danger took a different form.
In Gadoon, the BBC witnessed hundreds of villagers manually sifting through piles of rocks.
A local official reported that a cloudburst had triggered a flash flood early in the morning. This occurs when a sudden updraft in humid air leads to a localized burst of intense rainfall. The resulting torrent swept away homes and caused a landslide.
Men from neighboring villages rushed to provide assistance, which proved invaluable, though insufficient. The excavators urgently needed by the villagers were stranded on flooded roads, some obstructed by massive rocks.
“Nothing can progress until the machines arrive,” one man lamented to the BBC.
Suddenly, a heavy silence fell over the area. Dozens of men stood motionless in one corner. The lifeless bodies of two children, covered in dark mud, were recovered from beneath the rubble and carried away.
Similar scenes unfolded across the province, with rescue operations hampered by fallen trees and extensive infrastructure damage. A helicopter carrying aid crashed due to adverse weather conditions, resulting in the loss of all crew members.
Across villages and cities, millions have established settlements near rivers and streams, areas known to be prone to flooding. Pakistan’s River Protection Act, which prohibits construction within 200 feet (61 meters) of a river or its tributaries, was intended to address this issue. However, many find it too costly to relocate elsewhere.
Illegal construction exacerbates the problem.
Climate scientist Fahad Saeed attributes this to local corruption and believes that officials are failing to enforce the law. Speaking to the BBC in Islamabad, he pointed to a half-built, four-story concrete building, the size of a car park, situated right next to a stream that he witnessed flooding this summer, resulting in the death of a child.
“Such incidents continue to occur in Pakistan, just a few kilometers from parliament,” he said, visibly frustrated. “This is a result of misgovernance. The government’s role is to act as a watchdog.”
Former climate minister Senator Sherry Rehman, who chairs the climate committee in Pakistan’s Senate, attributes it to “graft” or simply “looking the other way” when construction permits are granted in vulnerable areas.
By late August, further south in the province of Punjab, floods had submerged 4,500 villages, overwhelming “Pakistan’s breadbasket,” in a country that struggles to afford sufficient food imports.
For the first time, the Sutlej, Ravi, and Chenab rivers flooded simultaneously, triggering the largest rescue operation in decades.
“This was the most significant anomaly,” stated Syed Muhammad Tayyab Shah, the chief risk officer for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
In Punjab’s capital, Lahore, the impact on wealthier and poorer communities was stark. The gated community of Park View City was inundated by the Ravi River, rendering its streets impassable. Residents of luxury homes were forced to evacuate.
Surveying the damage, two local men, Abdullah and his father Gulraiz, were confident that the water would be drained soon, thanks to the area’s property developer, Aleem Khan, a federal minister.
“No problem, Aleem Khan will take care of it,” Gulraiz assured the BBC.
However, for residents in the poorer neighborhood of Theme Park, the floods were devastating. One officer told the BBC that they were repeatedly rescuing people who swam back to their homes when the water levels receded, desperate to salvage whatever they could. But then the water would rise again, leaving them stranded.
The team witnessed one man returning from his house, carrying an inflatable donut on his hip.
Some residents were relocated to tents provided by the Alkhidmat Foundation Pakistan. Sumera, who was weeks away from giving birth, sat outside in the summer heat. She was severely malnourished.
“My doctor says I need two blood transfusions this week,” she said, struggling to keep hold of her toddler, Arsh.
Nearby, Ali Ahmad balanced a small kitten he had rescued from the floods on his shoulder. The boy was one of the few who had a mattress to sleep on.
By the end of the monsoon season, the floods had displaced more than 2.7 million people in Punjab, according to the UN, and damaged over one million hectares of farmland.
Further south in the Multan district, which is consistently affected by floods, the scale of the humanitarian crisis became even more evident, with tents lining dirt roads and highways.
Access to healthcare was already limited in rural areas of Pakistan, but the floods made the situation unbearable for many women encountered.
BBC Urdu’s Tarhub Asghar met two sisters-in-law, both nine months pregnant. A doctor had warned them that they were not drinking enough water. They held up a bottle to show why; the water was completely brown.
Some are exploring alternative solutions.
Architect Yasmeen Lari has designed what she calls “climate-resilient houses” in dozens of villages. In Pono, near Hyderabad, women showed the BBC huts they had built themselves: large, circular structures elevated on wooden stilts. Dr. Lari refers to it as their training center and says families can use it to store their belongings and seek shelter.
However, Dr. Lari argues that constructing an entire village on stilts would be impractical and prohibitively expensive. Instead, she emphasizes that her designs ensure that roofs do not collapse and that the use of natural materials such as bamboo and lime concrete allows villagers to quickly rebuild their homes themselves.
Pakistan has reached a point where “it’s not about saving buildings; it’s about saving lives,” she asserts.
This is the reality facing Pakistan. All the climate scientists and politicians interviewed by the BBC warn of an increasingly concerning future.
“Each year, the monsoon season will become more aggressive,” stated Syed Muhammad Tayyab Shah at the NDMA. “Every year, we will encounter new and unforeseen challenges.”
As the country confronts the growing and evolving challenges posed by climate change, where the most vulnerable are often the hardest hit, one sentiment is repeatedly voiced by people returning to homes likely to flood again next year: “I have nowhere else to go.”
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