Unprecedented heavy rains between 300mm to 500mm for two days lashed the upper regions of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and adjacent areas in Afghanistan at the end of July causing super floods that devastated one-thirds of the Pakistan total area and uprooted nearly 20 million people. "In the recorded Met history of this region there is no precedent of such heavy rains. We only hear that such heavy downpour had fallen in 1929, but no authentic data is available," Amjad Shad, Director Flood Warning Centre and Met Department, Lahore, told TNS.

Just a few days before the flooding rivers started drowning the vast regions, Punjab and Sindh provinces were slugging it out at a small quantity of 10,000 cusecs of water flown into the Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal for the irrigation purposes. Suddenly, the two provinces were caught with 1.1 million cusecs of water in their watercourses.

According to the Met Department, the country faced acute water shortage during the last two years owing to less than normal rainfall in the monsoon period, that is: June 15 – October 15. Thus, this summer's heavy rainfall indicates the end of the dry years and a transition to wet years.

What caused super floods in 2010?

The floods-2010 was mainly triggered by the Indus and its tributaries unlike recent past. In 1992, more than a million cusecs of water in Jhelum River along with high floods in Chenab had deluged Punjab and Sindh. In the early 1950s, swollen rivers of Ravi and Chenab had caused devastation in the central Punjab.

The floods-2010 were of unprecedented magnitude because, according to the Met Department, within a short period of two to three days, concentrated heavy rains fell in the catchment areas of four rivers, namely Indus and its three tributary rivers of Kabul, Swat and Kurram. An average 300mm of rains in a day ends up in the accumulation of one-foot deep water. These rains over a large area made the rivers surge and overflow.

According to the Flood Warning Centre, the Kabul River carried more than four million cusecs of water during the floods, which never happened in the past. The overflowing Swat merged into already swollen Kabul River. This caused massive devastation in Nowshera and its adjoining areas. Hill torrents and overflowing Swat had already pulled down the infrastructure in Swat Valley where no bridge is intact.

Another less-known river is Kurram, which flows from Afghanistan into Pakistan near Lakki Marwat. The flooded Kurram also merged into the Indus thus the scene was set for the calamitous floods in the northwestern region of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. "More than 600,000 cusecs of water flowed down Tarbela from the Indus and more than four million from Kabul, Swat and Kurram rivers joined it to form the wave of 1.5 million cusecs of water that travelled through Punjab and Sindh." Amjad Shad said.

According to Mehmoodul Hasan Siddiqui, advisor to the Punjab government, the Warsak hydel project at the Kabul River does not have storage capacity; it is meant for electricity generation. Thus there was no mechanism available to tame the furious Kabul River. He said there was high flood in Jhelum, but most water was stored in Mangla Dam. That is why, overflowing Jhelum caused flooding on a relatively smaller scale, such as in the areas of Shahpur and Sahiwal (Sargodha).

Why floods-2010 brought massive destruction?

According to the Federal Flood Commission (FFC), the floodwater flowed over more than 1500 km from Chitral in the north to Thatta and Badin in the south, drowning 10,942 villages, destroying 4,070,384 acres of cropped area and demolishing 557,226 houses while as many as 1,540 people lost their lives and 2,088 were wounded.

Pakistani water experts say that the country's rivers are huge and volatile as compared to those in Europe, where flooding does not cause such mayhem. "The rivers in Europe are equal to our big canals in size and flow of water," Amjad Shad said.

Mehmoodul Hasan Siddiqui said the water flow in the Indus River plummets to a maximum of 20,000 cusecs in winter while at the time of high flooding it touches to 1.5 million cusecs. This variation in the water flows in our rivers at different times of a year makes them different from those in Europe where floods cause less harm.

What could have saved us from devastation?

a) Emabankments: There are 1600 miles (nearly 2400 km) of embankments (or levees or dykes), mostly made of earth or a mix of stones and earth, along the rivers in Punjab alone. They have been built to save cities and human settlements from the overflowing rivers. When the water rises in rivers and builds a pressure, it cuts into these embankments and deluge the surrounding areas. In the present case, the embankment near the Taunsa Barrage (south Punjab) breached or was breached by the authorities to save the Barrage because it could pass up to 1.1 million cusecs of water while the water level in the Indus had already touched 1.05-mark. Had the embankment not been cut to drain out water, the entire canal system from the Taunsa Barrage would have destroyed. The breach in Taunsa embankment deluged Kot Addu, Muzaffargarh and the adjoining areas.

Another cut was made into the embankment near Jacobabad in the west towards Balochistan that drowned Naseerabad and Dera Murad Jamali and adjoining areas in Balochistan. The embankment was not cut in the east to protect the Shehbaz Airbase in Jacobabad district which has been leased to the US for 50 million dollars. The US embassy, however, says that the airbase is in the use of Pakistan Air Force.

Anyhow, the role of embankments is quite crucial in saving the cities and villages. In Sindh, from Guddu barrage near the border of the Punjab up to Kotri, there is a wall of embankments along the Indus. But due to silt over the years and wear and tear of the levees, this protective wall weakened. The massive corruption in the provincial irrigation departments and the pilferage of the money meant for strengthening these embankments is another cause that they breach at the time of flooding. "Strengthening these protective walls along the rivers and building new dykes is one solution available to save the population from the floods' destruction," Iftikhar-ul-Haq, a senior civil engineer told TNS.

b)Remodelling the barrages and headworks: The barrages and headworks are built at the flow of river to divert water to irrigation canals, but during the high floods, such as in 1992 and 2010, water flow increases beyond the capacity of these stations and threaten their existence. Thus, in order to save the structures of these headworks, water is diverted to the countryside. "We can increase the capacity of our barrages such as the Taunsa and Trimmu so that super floods could pass through them," Engineer Iftikhar-ul-Haq said. In recent past, the Taunsa Barrage was remodeled to strengthen its weakening structure but its capacity was not enhanced.

c) Water storage systems or dams: Water experts believe that storage dams are the best solution to avoid destruction from the flooding rivers. The floods-2010 was spontaneous and intensive. It could have been boon for the drought-stricken Pakistan. Dr Mubashir Hasan, a veteran civil engineer and former finance minister, calculates that during the one month between July 26, when the rains started in the country's northwestern parts and the end of August when the high flood tide in the Indus will dissipate into the Arabian Sea, nearly 40 million acre feet of floodwater was available in our river systems that could fill at least five water dams equal to the size of Tarbela and could have irrigated millions of acres and generated thousands of megawatts of electricity. In the absence of water-storage systems, the country not only lost the useful water worth billions of dollar but also sustained colossal losses.

Mehmoodul Hasan Siddiqui said the people in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa fear that Kalabagh dam would cause flooding in Nowshera, but this time the city was drowned in water despite the fact that Kalabagh dam was not there. He said Nowshera's flooding was caused by the Kabul River because a little above the Attock Bridge, the Kabul River flows into the Indus River in the narrow mountainous area that caused flooding in Nowshera. He said the city could be saved from flooding by building Munda Dam at the Swat River that finally merges into the Kabul River. By storing the water of Swat River, flows into Kabul River could be reduced. On the other hand, Kalabagh dam would have stored excessive water in the Indus and tamed its intensity thus saving the massive deluge in southern Punjab and Sindh provinces.

However, the critics of the Kalabagh dam in Sindh say that high flooding in the Indus and other rivers, Chenab and Jhelum, which merge into the Indus in southern Punjab, takes place after long intervals of decades. For example, this high flood came in the Indus 18 years after the 1992 floods. It implies that we should not build expensive dams for the floods that occur once in a decade or two.

The News on Sunday: Are the floods, tsunami, Russian fire, changing weather patterns a manifestation of global warming disasters around the world?

Ejaz Akram: Yes, they can be attributed to global warming. The ongoing debate today is whether there is global warming or not. This debate is artificial. Global warming exists as a daunting threat to our environment today. Corporations and nation states with their patterns of hyper production, hyper consumption and waste are the biggest contributors to it. They often are close to the media or own it, hence have artificially started the debate that it doesn't exist.

TNS: What causes global warming?

EA: We overproduce, over consume and waste. Waste includes solid, liquid and air emissions which are a result of development activity such as production and manufacturing. All three generate thermal energy, thereby triggering the warming up process. We can, therefore, confidently say that global warming is not because of underdevelopment but overdevelopment. Twenty-five percent of it is caused by the USA alone. Hence, from a global warming point of view, the ideal nation state is Afghanistan, which produces nothing and is hardly developed.

TNS: Are you suggesting that we go back to living like the Afghans do to ameliorate the environmental condition?

EA: No, I am in no way suggesting that. Afghanistan today is not like it is because of war. Afghanis have been like this before the 1970s all the way up to the 1870s. They are living an older lifestyle because modernisation has not touched them. They are living like that by default, not by choice. There are some countries that live like that by choice such as Switzerland which shifts the deleterious effect of global warming overseas while keeping the country safe. But the total effect on the world environment stays the same. It is a cumulative problem created by a bunch of countries that want to go on the so called path of progress, development and economic growth. This results in rising global temperature. Even if we in Pakistan, hypothetically speaking, started living like Afghanistan and say no to all development, even then, India would continue to produce and the weather pattern which is regional due to Indian global warming will continue to affect us. For example, the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 70s dumped their waste in the North Pole and when global warming happened that waste started trickling into Canadian rivers, across the North Pole. Hence the problem is not national.

TNS: What can individual nation states then do to solve the problem of global warming?

EA: A nation state cannot solve the problem itself, but can take initiatives in becoming vocal about it and adhering to global warming regimes starting from the Rio Summit 1992, Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Summit 2009. These regimes are not very successful. They curb emissions per capita by only a certain level and are hardest for those states producing the most for example Canada, USA, China, Europe, Japan etc. It's interesting to note that these countries which are ostensibly very beautiful are disastrous from environmental point of view and those countries that have visible litter and rubbish like Pakistan are actually quite friendly from a global environmental point of view. The former industrial economies have a lot more to lose, since these global warming regimes try to roll back their development process not affecting the younger economies as much.

TNS: Does that mean younger economies like Pakistan are in a better position environmentally?

EA: Younger economies are in a position to take the lead. The lead of conscience that humanity is cutting the branch it is sitting on. All of us are trying to go on the beaten path of development and growth that is leading to the collective problem of environment. For a possibility of a tomorrow, less developed countries should take the lead. But these are militarily very poor. They cannot slap other countries with sanctions. The biggest offenders of environment are the militarily strong and rich countries and the defenders of the environment are the poor and the weak. Problem cannot be solved alone by nation states.

TNS: What can we, as a poor economy, then do to solve this environmental challenge?

EA: We in Pakistan can make sensible relief policies; provide a system of transportation and timely evacuation, but that doesn't 'solve' the problem per se. What the states do should depend on the amount of money they have. First and foremost, the world needs to realise that there is a problem, be clear about what causes it, and then refrain from doing what causes it. This means we must stay off the beaten path but retain some elements of it. We can have hydroelectric power from the days of the previous path, perhaps energy based on nuclear fuel also. This will be a new era, hardly post-modernity. And if this era has to have a future, if modernity has to have a future, it must bring back tradition, otherwise it will die.

TNS: How can tradition be brought back?

EA: Take the example of the United States. The small farm must be rekindled. The big food corporation must give up land to small farmers so they can do environmental friendly farming, cater to local markets and do away with the big cities. Plain logic tells us that the entire New York State cannot live in the New York City. To reverse this curse of hyper urbanism which is the cause of environmental degradation, we have to shift back to the agricultural land. This is Gandhism.

Gandhi preached against modernism, and urged people to go back to the village. He was right. Because of development, there is more relative poverty in India now. Resuscitating communities is the solution to the problem of environment. Some production will have to be through the state, but individual liberties must be curtailed. Nobody should consume, produce and waste according to their freedom. Today's spoilt population must be disciplined. Giving complete liberties to people is the reason for environment degradation. Fixing this would mean that capitalism which legitimises greed, needs to be thrown out of the window. Technology will have to be controlled. Elite, which raise the expectations of the lower class by providing them the 'standard', need to understand that relative poverty must be cherished. This will only happen if centres of power come into exemplary collective action. The top people, corporations, nation states and military, who normally come and bomb Afghanistan and Iraq in the lust of oil to continue living according to the old model, will have to overnight become Mother Teresa and Abdul Sattar Edhi. Qualitative change at the centre of power structure needs to take place. An environmentally harmonious world will have to be a world of communities and not mega cities.