As villagers carried out the mud-soaked bodies of two children, the assembled crowd remained largely impassive.
They had gathered in a small village within the Swabi district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the site of a recent flash flood that swept away multiple homes, trapping dozens beneath the resulting debris.
While some observed the removal of the deceased children, others continued their conversations, and the remaining individuals – alongside rescue personnel and soldiers – pressed on with the search for survivors, utilizing tools and their bare hands.
Tears and panic were notably absent, replaced instead by a palpable sense of anger.
For many villagers, this anger stemmed from the lack of prior warning regarding the impending floods.
“Why didn’t the government warn us sooner?” was a sentiment voiced repeatedly.
However, this was coupled with resentment towards what they perceived as inadequate support from local authorities.
“We require the proper equipment to conduct this rescue operation,” explained Arif Khan, a villager assisting in the excavation of bodies.
“There were approximately 15 houses here; we need an excavator.”
Despite the presence of emergency teams and military personnel, the equipment requested by Arif remained stranded several hundred meters away, unable to traverse a flooded road.
“The ambulances, medicines, and excavators are en route,” assured Nisar Ahmad, the commissioner for the Mardan District. However, the scale of the flooding continued to impede their access to the village. Throughout the day, villagers persisted in their efforts to clear debris and recover bodies.
Such scenes are not unprecedented in Pakistan. Since June, monsoon rains have claimed the lives of approximately 800 individuals across the country.
In 2022, monsoon rains resulted in approximately 1,700 fatalities, leading to an estimated $14.9 billion in damages and a further $16.3 billion required for recovery and reconstruction efforts, according to World Bank data.
And in June of this year alone, monsoon rains have killed at least 750 people across the country.
Given this pattern of recurrence, the question arises: why is Pakistan unable to better protect itself from the recurrent onslaught of floods?
Pakistan’s geographic location renders it exceptionally vulnerable to the effects of climate change, facing challenges ranging from heavy monsoon rains to extreme temperatures and drought. The melting of glaciers has also created new lakes prone to potentially catastrophic glacial outbursts.
According to Dr. Syed Faisal Saeed, chief meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), these trends are intensifying due to climate change.
“Monsoon rains are likely to increase in the coming decades, so this issue is not a one year fix,” he says.
However, this prognosis is difficult for many to accept, considering Pakistan’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is less than 1%.
“There is a feeling that it is paying a big price for “international sins”, says Dr Amjad Ali Khan, a member of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s National Assembly, who advises the chief minister on climate issues. His province is where most deaths have been recorded during this year’s monsoons.
Senator Sherry Rehman, the former federal climate minister, recently argued “when lives are lost in the Global South, when rivers burst their banks, and when livelihoods vanish, there is no real money for climate-vulnerable countries like Pakistan”.
Some suggest that the country struggles with how to allocate its resources effectively.
As evidenced by this year’s federal budget, climate resiliency initiatives often compete with other priorities, such as defense.
Amid an overall reduction in spending, the budget for the Ministry of Climate Change was slashed to about $9.7m (£7.6m). Defence spending was hiked up to about $9bn (£6.93bn).
Ms. Rehman condemned the cuts, arguing that they send the wrong message. Following the budget announcement, she questioned: “If we are not seen investing in our own resilience, why would others support us?”
Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, an expert in climate risk management, argues that the Ministry of Climate Change’s budget does not accurately reflect the extent of climate funding in Pakistan.
Under its agreement with the IMF, the federal government also earmarked more than $2bn more in climate-related spending. Yet, Mr Sheikh says it includes some existing projects, such as dams and hydropower.
He says the budget aside, there are more than 1,000 unfinished development projects across sectors.
Given the absence of a short-term solution to the impacts of climate change, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) prioritizes early warning systems for extreme weather events.
Extreme weather events such as cloudbursts are hard to predict in advance. They’re caused by a sudden updraft in humid, moist air, which leads to a heavy and localised burst of rain. These have wrecked villages in recent days.
But Dr Saeed has said while these can’t be predicted days in advance, the general conditions that can lead to a cloudburst can be identified.
“When the PMD warns of heavy rainfall, all the districts should start preparing,” says Dr Saeed, though he does acknowledge that the PMD needs to improve its system.
“I’m not saying it’s perfect.”
In collaboration with the World Bank, the PMD is procuring new radars and automatic weather stations, as well as working to improve its short-term modeling capabilities.
A significant challenge lies in disseminating information effectively. Some of the worst episodes this summer happened in rural, mountainous regions, where network connectivity is very poor. A weather app or social media accounts won’t do these communities much good.
PMD is trialling new methods to get around this, alongside the United Nations Development Programme.
From the capital Islamabad, the PMD can trigger sirens installed in glacial valleys in northern Pakistan that are vulnerable to extreme flooding from glacial lake outbursts. But officials acknowledge this is not a silver bullet, as the damage this year has shown.
Part of the reason is that the most vulnerable communities live by riverbeds. While several laws such as the “River Protection Act” – which prohibits construction within 200 ft (61m) of a river or its tributaries – have been passed, people not only haven’t moved, they’ve also continued building in these areas.
“You would be erasing villages,” says Dr Khan, adding that people have been living along these rivers for decades and the law is impossible to implement.
Dr Khan argues lawmakers did not consider the culture of these communities which revolve around tribal elders, and that jirgas – tribal councils – should have been consulted to convince people to move.
He also argues it’s “next to impossible” if alternative housing and shelters aren’t funded and built for these communities.
Building laws are violated in urban areas as well. Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi was recently paralysed by flooding, with officials forced to declare a public holiday to deal with the aftermath.
So far, about 30% of deaths from this year’s monsoon season are from houses collapsing, according to the country’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
“Nobody follows the laws. Every street is becoming congested,” Dr Yasmeen Lari, an expert in climate-resilient architecture, said.
Karachi is also a victim of its poor drainage system.
Though the city has hundreds of them, they have either narrowed or been blocked by illegal construction.
The housing minister of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, says finding space to create new ones has been a challenge, and when they’ve tried to remove shops or buildings that cover them, their attempts have been blocked in court.
Saeed Ghani added that a new, more punitive law was in consultation to close legal loopholes, as well as hold officers of the Sindh Building Control Authority liable, should they approve construction that violates regulations.
If this reveals the cost of fragmented governance, there have been efforts at the federal level to try to secure more help from the international community.
Pakistan’s struggling economy has relied on several international bailouts. Successive governments have made it a priority to seek international support for its climate programmes.
They have secured funding from the World Bank and the United Nations, in addition to loans from the International Monetary Fund over the years.
A landmark moment was at the COP27 climate summit. The 2022 floods were fresh in the minds of the attendees, and the devastation had affected 33 million people. Pakistan and others pushed to establish the Loss and Damage Fund to help countries hit by climate disasters.
Domestically, there have been afforestation plans to restore natural flood barriers. In 2023, the government launched a “National Adaptation Plan” aiming to create a nationwide roadmap.
But it remains to be seen how this will all develop in practice, in a country which has seen so much political upheaval and changes in government.
At the end of most conversations, whether with officials, climate experts, or the frontline victims of these extreme weather events, there is a certain hopelessness. “Poverty is the worst thing,” Dr Lari says.
Without enough money, whether from the international community, the federal government or provincial budget, it is hard to execute the solutions they’ve all preached.
A better early warning system, new homes on safer land, climate-resilient infrastructure – all these take funding and any progress so far hasn’t prevented the hundreds of people killed this year.
“Everything is top-down,” Dr Lari explains. She says there has been too much reliance on governments, without enough results. If Pakistan does not have the means to fund these solutions, she argues, it should focus on educating the population and creating a “poverty escape ladder” at the grassroots level.
She points to her work in thousands of villages, sharing knowledge of climate-resilient homes, food security and tree planting.
In the meantime, this year’s monsoon season is not over – and neither is the sense of loss and grief.
Back in the village in Swabi district, a funeral was taking place for those found, only a few metres away from a rescue operation.
Prayers were chanted in unison, as the country prepared for warnings of more heavy rains, and more danger they are struggling to protect against.