PPLDM in print media: One way Pakistan’s monsoon calamity could worsen

Raja Shahzeb Khan

THE floods happening across Pakistan are of an unimaginable scale. Yet, the authorities say more is to come. Pakistan’s Met Department predicts another round of heavy monsoon rainfall. The question is: will it simply prolong the calamity happening right now or will Pakistan’s 2022 deluge worsen?

This is clearly a supercharged monsoon season. Rainfall in Pakistan has been far above average consistently since late June. So it may be that vast amounts of rainfall will continue to pour in through September. And just as it started early, this monsoon might end late. But there is one scenario that would be the absolute worst case for Pakistan, which is refocusing of monsoon rainfall towards the country’s mountainous northwest. This is what made the floods of 2010 so devastating, despite that year’s monsoon rain totals being far less than now.

Historically, monsoon rains in Pakistan usually fell over the vast plains of Punjab, where they were readily absorbed and flowed into numerous rivers. But in 2010, moisture-laden clouds ran straight into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Collision with the mountains resulted in all the rain falling down at once. Because of extensive deforestation removing water-absorbing trees, floodwaters cascaded down the mountains, inflicting death and destruction on an extreme scale, before entering the Indus and making the entire river swell and burst its banks, displacing several million people.

In 2022, rainfall has again largely bypassed the Punjab basin. But, since early July, the rains are mostly falling in southern Pakistan, where rainfall is very rare and also cannot be handled by the terrain. Balochistan has dry, hard soil which does not absorb water and the Indus in Sindh is surrounded by natural soil levees that prevent rainwater from flowing into it.

This, combined with Pakistan’s overall rainfall being much higher than usual, is taking a horrific toll on Sindh and Balochistan. But what if the rains take a different direction and head straight towards the KP? The mountainous areas are already being hit hard by downpours, undoubtedly contributing to the Indus’s extreme flooding just like in 2010. Flood levels in Swat and Kabul rivers have been very high the past few days and the KPK government has declared a rain emergency in several districts. In Swat, authorities say the devastation is many times greater than ever was in 2010! Plus, forest cover has been further denuded in the last decade. Just a few months ago, there was a spate of wildfires in Pakistan’s north and northwest caused by the extreme heat-waves that preceded (and caused) the floods.

Still, the downpours in Pakistan’s northwest are very small compared to in the south. The risk that this will change still exists, of course. But is there any particular reason to believe this will happen? For starters, one way the 2010 monsoon rains stood out is that they fell across a very wide stretch of Pakistan, including areas that the monsoon never reached before like remote corners of Gilgit-Baltistan and western Balochistan. In 2022, the rains exhibit the same incredibly wide spatial extent, drenching even Gilgit-Baltistan and western Balochistan, suggesting that the northwest is within their easy reach.

Furthermore, in 2010, the specific reason that the mountains received so much rain is that a wavering Jetstream parked an extremely high-pressure zone in western Russia that attracted the South Asian monsoon currents, pulling them towards Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. In 2022, the Jetstream is again going haywire and subjecting Europe to powerful heat domes over the summer. But this high pressure has mostly been in western Europe, extending somewhat into central Europe, probably not the right place to affect Pakistan’s monsoon. There is also a heat dome in Siberia, like there was in 2010. In western Russia, major heat-waves have been reported over the past few days, blanketing Moscow in smoke from wildfires. They are nowhere near as intense as Russia’s 2010 heat-waves, but they are an ominous sign. The fact is, this is a danger we must watch out for.

Predicting the weather more than a few days in advance is very hard. Regarding precipitation, rainfall from stratiform clouds is relatively easy to predict, since they are caused by colliding hot and cold air masses whose size, velocity, temperature, and moisture content are easily observed and measured. But cumuliform rainfall is most unpredictable, as it is caused by uneven solar heating of the ground creating convection cells that raise clouds high up into the atmosphere. When and where these clouds form is highly random.

The mountains encircling South Asia keep cold air masses out of Pakistan, so cumuliform convection is the main way monsoon rains fall in Pakistan, along with any clouds reaching the mountains, which is called orographic rainfall. Orographic rainfall is predictable in the sense that mountains are a fixed feature, but it is still hard to foresee if monsoon clouds are expended as rainfall before reaching the mountains.

However, in addition to watching the weather in Pakistan’s vicinity, our nation’s weather forecasters must also carefully monitor what is going on in northern Eurasia. The way the Jetstream is behaving this year means it is capable of anything. A powerful heat dome in North America moved eastwards this summer. Perhaps Europe’s heat dome will do the same, attaining a position that creates further peril for Pakistan.

Even as we deal with the devastating crisis happening now, we must be wary.

—The writer is Director at Pakistan’s People Led Disaster Management.

PPLDM in print media: Pak historic flood catastrophe should have been seen coming

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

THE current monsoon season has become Pakistan’s worst nightmare. More than 1,000 people are reported dead in floods since the season began, and large-scale flooding currently affects millions of people all across the country. A clear assessment of the situation is not forthcoming. The United Nations has said three million Pakistanis are affected. The government of Pakistan says 33 million are affected. That is more than the highest figure reported for Pakistan’s historic 2010 floods.

Extreme weather has been battering Pakistan non-stop for several months now. There were heavy pre-monsoon rains in June. When monsoon rainfall officially began at the beginning of July, it quickly attained above-average proportions and remained so. By early July, Sindh was experiencing rainfall 261% above normal and Balochistan 274% above normal. This resulted in around 90 people being reported killed due to flash flooding and roof collapse as well as several glacial lake outburst floods in the north. Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan were the worst-affected areas. This came after Pakistan sweltered continuously for four months in the worst stretch of heatwaves it has ever experienced, which also caused floods through melting of mountain snow and ice. Even after heavy monsoon rains arrived, extreme heat still prevailed in some parts of the country with both the rains and heat contributing to floods.

Since then, the situation has worsened drastically. As ambiguous as the reports are of the impact on people, the scale of the hazard is clear. The brunt of the devastation continues to be in the south, with official figures stating that, so far, Balochistan received 496 percent more August rainfall than normal and Sindh 784 percent more.

Several commentators are already comparing the current crisis to that of 2010. Indeed, by some measures, it seems to be much bigger. Back in 2010, Pakistan’s Met department reported that nationwide rainfall was 70 percent above normal in July and 102 percent above normal in August, while Pakistan’s rainfall totals for August 2022 are recorded at 241 percent above normal. But the crucial difference is that, in 2010, a massive surge of rain began in late July, falling mostly in the mountains. More extreme spells followed in August. This year, rainfall has been much less intense but still continuously high from the beginning of the season. That’s why one-fifth of Pakistan’s land area was submerged in 2010, not yet the case this year.

Still, parallels between 2010 and 2022 are apt and go far beyond the behavior of the monsoon within Pakistan’s borders. 2010 was a time of weather extremes worldwide. A La Nina began in the Pacific Ocean and would soon be the strongest on record. Severe heatwaves broke out in many parts of the world. This included record heat in Pakistan, South Asia, and the Arabian Sea before the start of the monsoon season. 2022 is another year effectively seeing a global severe weather emergency, especially of heat and drought, some of the worst happening in South Asia from March to June.

On this basis, Pakistan’s People Led Disaster Management anticipated weeks in advance that 2022’s monsoon season would be especially dangerous for Pakistan. The early onset of ferocious monsoon rains was enough to alert us to the impending catastrophe. But meteorological factors in place also have been pointing to a very high-risk rainy season, such as the vigor with which the current La Nina has been persisting since 2020.

Most of all, however, is how uncannily weather phenomena observed this year in Pakistan and around the world resemble what happened not only in 2010 but also 2011, the year Pakistan was struck by its second-worst ever floods, as well as 2012, a third year in a row of severe floods in Pakistan, likely dwarfed by what is happening today.

This scribe issued warnings in print and on YouTube, which went unheeded by people. Since then, the fears have materialized and parallels with 2010-2012 continue to pick up. In 2011, the bulk of Pakistan’s flooding took place in Sindh because heavy rainfall took place there, a rare occurrence, and in 2012 as well, Sindh and Balochistan suffered the worst of the floods. The same thing is happening right now while today’s floods are also reaching every corner of Pakistan, something only ever witnessed before in 2010.

The authorities in Pakistan say that there are alarming indications that another bout of heavy rainfall will take place in September, usually when the monsoon rains begin retreating. Climate minister Sherry Rehman said that Pakistan has gone through eight monsoon cycles (whereas it is usually three or four in an entire season) and another one is coming.

One good reason to believe this prediction will come true is that, in 2011 and 2012, Pakistan also suffered major floods caused by rainfall in September. Not only is the current monsoon season already a lot like those years, with much of southern Pakistan being submerged, so are the preceding circumstances. The monsoons of 2011 and 2012 were preceded by dry conditions that threatened Pakistan with drought.

The same happened in 2022, the heatwaves being one cause. With all those other similarities, we should expect that, just like 2011 and 2012, the 2022 monsoon season has the ability to extend in full strength into September. In 2011, the second spell of monsoon rainfall began on 30th August, ended 2nd September, and was followed by four more spells that drowned Sindh. The nationwide floods of 2012 took place entirely within the month of September.

It could very well be that, similarly, Pakistan’s current deluge will worsen in the days ahead and may end up becoming one of the biggest disasters in our history.

Everyone reading this, please ring alarms.

—The writer is Director at Pakistan’s People Led Disaster Management.

PPLDM in print media: Monsoon floods – Worst may be yet to come

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

IT is early August, 2022, more than a month after Pakistan’s summer monsoon rainfall officially began on June 29th (though heavy rains started happening on the 14th). By early July, the country received 87% higher than normal rainfall for this time of year. Since then, unprecedented spells of rainfall and devastating flooding have continued unabated, especially in Balochistan and Sindh. Monsoon rains have been picking up strength much earlier than usual, with the authorities saying they have already reached in July what is usually their peak strength. As a result, 500 people have died in the last six weeks and 40,000 houses and 2,500 kilometres of road have been damaged or destroyed.

It is already a major disaster. However, this is still just the beginning. The bulk of Pakistan’s monsoon rainfall is usually from late July to the end of August. On that basis, we should expect the rainfall we are experiencing now to worsen or at least continue in the coming month. But how much worse is it likely to get? One indicator to base our expectations on is La Nina, a climate phase in which the western Pacific warms in relation to the east, strengthening the South Asian monsoon and making floods in Pakistan more likely.

One of the strongest La Nina events on record started in 2010, the same year as Pakistan’s unfortunate “super-flood”. Another La Nina, considered the strongest since 2010, began in late 2020 and dissipated in early 2021. It returned in late 2021 and has remained since. Pakistan’s monsoon season was severe in 2020, not so much in 2021. But 2022’s La Nina is in itself extraordinary.

It did not dissipate as expected in spring of 2022, and continues to be quite strong today. Weather agencies around the globe forecast a high chance that it will continue throughout August, could even last until 2023. If it does so, that would be the first time since 1998-2001 that La Nina lasted for three consecutive years. 1975 (a year of major flooding for Pakistan) was the last time that a La Nina strengthened instead of weakening in its third year.

The current La Nina looks like its on track to do the same. Pakistan should remain on high alert. An epic La Nina event is happening right alongside the entire summer monsoon season. The fact that La Nina has already been happening for two years could exacerbate its current effects. It has likely caused Pakistan’s heavy rainfall in July. But La Nina, part of the ENSO climate cycle, is not the only climate cycle to watch out for.

There is also the Indian Ocean Dipole, and meteorologists say it is right now in a negative phase, when the western Indian Ocean is colder than the east. There isn’t very clear information about how the IOD affects South Asia’s monsoon. Scientists usually state that a negative IOD decreases the strength of the monsoon, which must be because colder waters near the Arabian Sea contribute less rain.

There was a negative IOD last year as well, probably sparing Pakistan a worse monsoon. But some recent reports in Pakistan’s press say the negative IOD is giving a boost to Pakistan’s rainfall. That must be because high-pressure over the oceans increases evaporation and sends the moisture straight towards South Asia.

There is a lot of study that needs to be done on this subject. One example from history should be noted. Before 2021, the last time there was La Nina and negative IOD at the same time was in 2010. Both started in the summer at the same time as the massive flooding in Pakistan raged, before the negative IOD ended in November while La Nina dissipated next year in spring 2011, resuming later same year.

Extreme weather events of 2010 and 2011 that are linked to that La Nina and negative IOD are being repeated today. That includes a severe drought that began in East Africa in 2010 and lasted into the next year, leading to a massive region-wide famine beginning in summer 2011, along with historic floods in eastern Australia in late 2010.

Fast forward to the present and both events on a similar scale are happening now. That must mean that the negative IOD conditions occurring since 2021 and the La Nina conditions occurring since 2020 are having similar effects on the weather as they did back in 2010, particularly in the Indian Ocean, the source of Pakistan’s monsoon. Both La Nina and negative IOD tend to lessen rain in East Africa and increase it in Australia, but what is happening now is extreme.

That alone should give Pakistan reason for concern. Ever since La Nina began in 2020, extreme weather events have been very common, especially those linked to the jet-streams. And many of those events were similar to what happened in the La Nina years 2010, 2011, and 2012. For example, 2022 has seen an abundance of heat waves all around the world, including record-breaking ones in Europe caused by high air pressure. Similarly, 2010 was year of prolific heat waves, and one high-pressure zone in western Russia was linked to Pakistan’s floods.

Even Pakistan’s current flooding shares unique features with the country’s 2010 floods, with rainfall extending to usual shadow zones in Balochistan, KP, and Gilgit-Baltistan.

With everything that has been going on for more than two years, especially in 2022, there is every reason to believe Pakistan faces an extremely high chance of a severe monsoon, even a disaster reminiscent of 2010. We must continue to be vigilant.

—The writer is Director at Pakistan’s People Led Disaster Management.

PPLDM in print media: One Of The Biggest Natural Disasters Of Our Times May Be About To Strike Pakistan (July 17, 2022)

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

For more than two years, the world we live in has been battered by extreme weather more frequently than ever before, taking a heavy toll globally alongside the pandemic and the war in Europe. From epic calamities like Australia’s Black Summer bushfires and Texas’s Arctic freeze, to the 2021 floods in Europe, to the floods, heatwaves, and droughts happening around the world right now, disasters occur regularly. It is certain that many more will be coming, yet it remains impossible to predict or have any idea of what and where the next severe weather event will be. But there are signs in the air hinting at one catastrophic scenario about to unfold in one of the world’s most climate-sensitive nations, Pakistan, which may be about to suffer a repeat of its worst floods ever. 

Like the first three years of the 2020s, the first three years of the 2010s saw a global uptick in severe weather and Pakistan bore the worst of it. Every summer during the monsoon season, Pakistan runs the chance of experiencing large-scale flooding, but it never before saw anything close to what 2010 wrought. The country was devastated by its largest floods on record. Unprecedented rainfall submerged one-fifth of the country in August, killing 2,000 people and displacing 20 million. It was 2010’s biggest disaster besides Haiti’s earthquake and Pakistan’s biggest-ever disaster besides the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. The following year, 2011, the weary nation suffered its second-worst flooding ever. Heavy monsoon rainfall submerged large areas of Pakistan’s south (Sindh and Balochistan), a region less affected in 2010. Another round of flooding across the nation followed in 2012, far milder than the preceding deluges but still enormous by normal standards of Pakistan’s monsoon. These terrible floods did not occur in isolation. They were linked to weather patterns taking place around the world in 2010-2012. And many of those same phenomena have surfaced again in 2020-2022, though not always in the same order.

In 2010, the strongest La Nina on record made its appearance. A weather phase in which the eastern Pacific cools and the western Pacific becomes warmer, La Nina makes floods in Pakistan more likely because warm western Pacific water contributes to monsoon precipitation in South Asia. 2010 began with a mild El Nino, the opposite of La Nina, which dissipated in May, leaving Pakistan with drought conditions. La Nina began in July, the same month Pakistan’s floods began. Around the same time, there was a spate of extreme heatwaves around the globe. This included record-high temperatures in Pakistan, India, the Middle East, and in the Arabian Sea in June, which powered Pakistan’s rainfall. There was also an unprecedented summer heatwave in western Russia caused by the Jetstream wavering and placing a high-pressure dome there. This heatwave contributed to the Arab Spring by destroying Russian harvests and raising food prices. It is also linked to Pakistan’s monster deluge that summer. Scientists say the Russian heat dome pulled in South Asian monsoon currents, causing them to collide with Pakistan’s western mountains, producing a high rate of rainfall. 

After Pakistan’s catastrophic rainy season, the La Nina continued its pace into 2011 and caused many other deadly weather events, such as historic floods in eastern Australia from November 2010 to January 2011 and a record Arctic blast that swept the mainland USA in February 2011, freezing even Texas. La Nina ended in spring 2011, but its aftereffects continued to reverberate. The US Southwest, especially Texas, underwent historic drought and heat over the spring and summer and another massive drought spread across East Africa beginning in July. East Africa’s historic 2011 drought caused a huge famine killing an estimated quarter of a million people. Likely contributing to these events was La Nina’s return in September. Two La Nina events within the same year is known as a “double-dip” La Nina.

It was at the same time, late August and September 2011, that southern Pakistan flooded. Before, 2011’s monsoon season rainfall was actually below average, creating dry conditions that threatened Pakistan with drought before the floods arrived. 

The second La Nina, which was weaker than the first, ended in March 2012. But it, too, left behind a strong legacy. America’s drought expanded from Texas to the rest of the US. In Pakistan, there was again a dearth of rain in July and August, causing a serious dry spell, until the floods began in September.

That was back then. But how does it all mirror the present? In September 2020, a La Nina began and became the strongest since 2010. That year, parts of Pakistan suffered severe but still normal-scale flooding. But when 2021 began, La Nina’s influence began to show strong parallels with 2011. In February 2021, a record Arctic blast swept the mainland USA, wreaking havoc on Texas, and in March, extreme floods submerged eastern Australia. La Nina ended in May 2021, but a severe drought in the southwestern United States intensified to record breaking levels, affecting especially Texas. Meanwhile, there was a global outbreak of heatwaves very similar to what happened in 2010. From May to July, western Russia sweltered under unprecedented heat caused by a heat dome that Russia’s met department Roshydromet described as being comparable to the one in 2010, while record summer heat prevailed in Pakistan, the Middle East, and the Arabian Sea. La Nina then returned in September. 

These were the same ingredients that made the 2010 Pakistan floods possible. But 2021 passed without any significant flooding in Pakistan. Intense rains caused some damage, but mostly, the monsoon season saw a dearth of rainfall provoking drought, until September rains provided some relief. 

It is now 2022 and things continue to be alarming. La Nina weakened initially but has resurged. America’s drought continues its devastating course. Australia floods again. East Africa is undergoing severe drought comparable in scale and severity to the 2011 drought. Plus, heatwaves have been prolific worldwide this spring and summer, including heatwaves across South Asia that were record-breaking in their intensity, range, duration, and early onset. Finally, La Nina is forecast to continue and strengthen in late 2022. This is the third La Nina in a row, a very rare “triple-dip” La Nina, last seen in 1998-2001.

What does this mean for Pakistan? The current monsoon is already overactive, killing more than 150 people since late June, according to official figures. Pakistan authorities reported in early July that rainfall in Pakistan was 87% above normal up till this time of year, 261% above normal in Sindh and 274% above normal in Balochistan. But Pakistan’s monsoon is usually at full strength from mid-July to the end of August, putting the most dangerous period ahead. 

Pakistan is fortunate to be spared major flooding in 2021. Everything linked to Pakistan’s 2010 and 2011 floods was present that year. But the crucial factor may be lack of extreme drought in East Africa back then. La Nina often causes drought in East Africa, but not usually on such a level. The fact that the East Africa droughts of 2011 and 2022 are equally severe suggests the 2011 La Nina and 2022 La Nina are similarly affecting the Indian Ocean, from where Pakistan’s monsoon originates. Plus, Pakistan and India’s extremely high temperatures over the last four months are likely to supercharge this year’s monsoon, like they did in 2010, by contributing to high Indian Ocean temperatures and low pressure overland. And if La Nina revitalizes later this year as forecasted, it will likely strengthen what is already a severe monsoon season in Pakistan and the rest of South Asia. 

All these factors make it clear. This year’s monsoon season carries a much higher chance than normal of bringing large-scale flooding to Pakistan, on the scale of 2012, or 2011, or even 2010. If that happens, it will be the current decade’s worst natural disaster so far. Pakistan, like most nations, is worse off now than when 2010 began, embroiled in political turmoil and economic crisis. Some observers are expressing concern that, after what just happened in Sri Lanka, Pakistan will be the next country to give way. That is not really plausible, under current trajectories. But if a super-flood does strike this summer, it would be a testing scenario for Pakistan. The country cannot handle such a disaster on its own.

The world must wake up to this impending threat and take all action needed to prepare before it is too late.

Author is director at Pakistan’s People-Led Disaster Management (PPLDM) and issued similar flood warnings in 2021 in electronic and print media and on PPLDM’s YouTube channel Disaster Management (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3_vsqGckhCgB7WjdIGMoew).  

PPLDM in print media: Current rain crisis has another issue

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

THESE are difficult days for Pakistan on many fronts, one of which is the weather. For the past four months, the country endured the worst stretch of heatwaves the region has ever known. At least 65 deaths are reported, millions suffered greatly while power outages occurred and agricultural losses have been high. The extreme and unseasonal heat also caused floods through the melting of snow and ice in the mountains.

Now the monsoon clouds have arrived in Pakistan to provide relief from the heat, but not only do dangerously hot conditions still prevail in many areas, the rainfall is already bringing problems of its own on a scale far bigger than usual. It is early July and extreme rainfall has already wreaked havoc on many parts of the country, especially Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan (though the latter’s problems are probably also being caused by persisting heatwaves). As stated by Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman, Pakistan received monsoon rainfall 87% higher than normal for this time of year. Most of the rainfall was in the south and southwest. Rainfall was 261% above normal in Sindh and 274% above normal in Balochistan.

As a result, nearly a hundred people have been reported dead from various rain and flood incidents since June. Several glacial lake outburst floods have occurred in the country’s north. Hundreds of houses and roofs weakened by rainfall have collapsed, killing and injuring people, and people have been electrocuted. Severe urban flooding has occurred in many cities, such as parts of Islamabad and Karachi. In Balochistan, heavy downpours and flash floods have been calamitous. On July 6, 20 people were reportedly killed by rain-related incidents in Quetta, prompting a state of emergency to be declared there. A coal-mine in Balochistan and another in Sindh, in Jhimpir, were flooded, trapping mine workers. 8 miners died in the Jhimpir mine, one of whom was 12 years old.

Another potential hazard is now underway. Eid-ul Adha is a time when Muslims trade and slaughter livestock in large numbers. Afterwards, a lot of animal waste, like offal, is left over and, in Pakistan, people often struggle to dispose of them properly, resulting in unsanitary conditions. But this year, it is likely to be a much bigger problem than normal, because Eid-ul Azha will take place in the midst of this strong monsoon season.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department predicts heavy rainfall across Pakistan during Eid. Before Eid, there has been a weakening of monsoon currents (which could enable proliferation of heat), and then, over the weekend, there will likely be widespread rainfall in Sindh and Balochistan and intense rain spells in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir, and Punjab. Low-lying areas of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Peshawar, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, and Sialkot are likely to be submerged. On top of that, there is the severe heat and humidity across Pakistan, which is likely to continue during Eid and after.

The combination of very wet conditions, very hot conditions, and the flesh of millions of sacrificed animals left after the Eid-ul Adha festivities is a recipe for disaster.

Every monsoon season, Pakistan’s urban centers struggle to handle the rains and to keep the drains clear. Waste management, which is a vital companion to water and flood management, is usually poorly managed and tends to be overwhelmed by sacrificial animal waste after Eid-ul Adha.

The authorities right now are taking measures to ensure that animal remains are taken care of. But if significant urban floods occur during this time, such as in Karachi where heavy rains have just taken place and have once again wreaked havoc on the city’s infrastructure and created gridlock, the offal is going to present a serious situation. Rainwater can wash offal away into areas where they are less likely to be found and collected. The people dealing with sacrificial animals at least dump offal in concentrated places where they can be easily gathered, but offal scattered around is much harder to clean up.

As offal remains lying about for days and weeks, as happens even in the best of times, hot, humid, and wet conditions will enable its rapid decomposition. There can be rainfall followed by heat or heat followed by rainfall. Humidity and moisture along with heat means that the offal will be kept warm without drying out. And if rains are bad enough, people can be stranded or come into contact with floodwaters, exposing them to the risk of diseases.

All these factors mean that Pakistan is about to face a grave sanitation issue. There are other sources of disease to also watch out for, since the summer monsoon is often a time when illness spreads. And this season, the combination of heat and rainfall could make mosquitoes especially dangerous. Mosquitoes, which breed in stagnant water, are most active when temperatures are above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. And if temperatures get too hot, they bite less, but the pathogens they carry get more active and infectious. Waterborne diseases of all kinds are also more common in warm temperatures. The risk of epidemics for Pakistan in the coming months is very high.

The summer monsoon season has just begun, so if it is already so overactive, that bodes ill for what the rest of the season will bring. Mid-July is when the rains usually come in earnest. Pakistan could face a major deluge displacing millions of people. Pakistan must be ready for what the next two months will bring.

The writer is Director at Pakistan’s People-Led Disaster Management.

PPLDM in print media: Afghan earthquake

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

MORE than 1,500 people are already known to have died in the earthquake that struck Afghanistan near its border with Pakistan in the early hours of June 22 and over 3,000 are injured, with at least 10,000 homes wrecked. Dozens of casualties are reported in Pakistan’s remote tribal belt as well.

Despite being only a magnitude 6.2, the earthquake became a huge disaster because it had a shallow focus located right under a landslide-prone, densely-populated area filled with weak buildings made of wood and mud. Heavy rainfall in Afghanistan and Pakistan also plays into the severity of the damage. Rescue efforts are going on as of this writing and it is a race against time before rescue turns into retrieval of dead bodies.

This is the most devastating catastrophe yet in a series of excruciating crises presently engulfing Afghanistan, a country that has constantly suffered immense hardship for the last forty years. It seems just about everything that can go wrong for Afghanistan is going wrong.

When the Taliban took over in August last year, governance of the country was plunged into disarray and has remained dysfunctional ever since while the world started sanctioning Afghanistan, bringing an end to the foreign aid that the country was heavily supported by. A brutal winter forced people to burn plastic to stay warm and breathe in the acrid smoke. There’s been a surge of diseases like measles and disasters like drought and flooding. The global food crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will exacerbate hunger in Afghanistan. And now, the region’s geological fault-lines have struck a blow of their own. The only mercy is that this earthquake came in the middle of summer, and not cruel winter conditions.

This latest calamity is history repeating itself. Shortly after the first Taliban regime took over Afghanistan in 1996, an earthquake in February 1998 killed reportedly around 2,000 people, followed by an earthquake in May that year that is thought to have killed 4,000. In 2021, the Taliban took over the country again and Afghanistan’s worst earthquake since 1998 (which is also Pakistan’s worst earthquake since 2015) struck nearly a year later. This means that the situation is the same, Afghans suffering an acute humanitarian emergency while their country is dysfunctional and isolated from the rest of the world because of who is in control of it.

There is just one difference. Today’s Taliban is far more mild-mannered than the ones that ruled from 1996 to 2001 (likely influenced by Afghanistan’s modest social, political and economic progress since 2001), but it is being treated as much more of a pariah by the international community than it was back then, because this is the post-September 11 era and the West just lost a war they fought against the Taliban for 20 years.

It seems the international community is acting as far more of the villain than the Taliban when it comes to Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis. They have not lifted most of their sanctions, including on the banking sector which can wire aid money into Afghanistan. News reports about Wednesday’s terrible earthquake have nothing about the Taliban obstructing aid. The Taliban have instead been pleading for international community to help. Yet, countries and aid organizations are seen pondering over how they can help the Afghan people without abetting the Taliban – contemplating even whether they should be helping at all.

Compare this to the 1998 earthquakes (different in that both affected an area controlled by the Northern Alliance, not the Taliban, and Tajikistan was a significant conduit of aid delivery for the areas affected). International aid agencies responding to the earthquakes mainly based themselves in Pakistan. There was little indication of direct animosity with the Taliban. The United Nation-led earthquake response was swift and extensive.

What makes today’s situation so much worse for the people of Afghanistan is the fact that world has gone through two years of the coronavirus pandemic (worst global crisis since World War 2) and, upon coming out of it, is now faced with the biggest war in Europe since World War 2.

The crisis in Ukraine has captured the attention of the West and their aid giving mechanism, while Western European countries that are usually the most generous givers of foreign aid are dealing with shortage of Russian gas.

Afghans can only rely on outside help, because there is nothing left in their own country that they can go by, but the world is now less capable of giving help and less inclined to heeding Afghan pleas for help. The weary international community may even be using the Taliban as an excuse to not give help.

Afghanistan is such a poor country that it would not require much to give the Afghans the barest minimum they need in order to survive. And there are worse things happening in Afghanistan than the Taliban’s policies/vision. In a situation as dire as this, humanitarian priorities overrule political ones.

China and Russia are major powers in Afghanistan’s proximity, so they too should open up their coffers and commit expertise on ground in Afghanistan.

In the age of climate change and frequent natural disasters, the West should help innocent people survive a huge calamity that is not human-made but nature’s making.

Continuing to sanction innocent populations could accelerate the development of an international financial order that is alternative to the West’s, a process currently being driven by West’s sanctions against Russia. Putin is trying to de-Dollarise the world and has many allies in Asia, a continent rich in population, capital and resources.

Natural disasters are an opportunity to project soft power, a vital ingredient of overall power projection in the world. This strategic calculation should drive West’s decision making in easing sanctions against Afghanistan, a country rich in critical resources. Afghanistan may be appallingly poor now but has a rich future.

—The writer is Director at Pakistan’s People-Led Disaster Management.

PPLDM in print media: The State Of The World On World Environment Day 2022

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

June 5 is designated World Environment Day by the UN. In 50 years since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment that the UN commemorates on 5^th day of June, people’s environmental awareness, along with the impact human activity is having on the planet, has expanded immensely. The struggle for protecting the environment took center stage worldwide in 2019, as a protest movement against climate change swept the globe. Meanwhile, environmentalists prepared for 2020’s 50^th Earth Day. It really seemed that combatting climate change and other forms of environmental destruction would be the world’s prime focus from then on, creating the possibility of headway on these issues in the foreseeable future.

Then, 2020 turned out to be what no one expected. The pandemic turned the whole world upside down. Consequently, climate change receded into the back of people’s mind. As for the 50^th Earth Day, all planned rallies and campaigns had to be cancelled. All events were held digitally, with the largest online mobilization on record being achieved. People struggling amidst a devastating health crisis had no time to be concerned about something as remote as climate change. After two years, life appeared to be finally returning to normal for billions of people in early 2022 as the pandemic waned. And, then, Russia invaded Ukraine, beginning a whole new series of troubles. The global economic situation nosedived further. These circumstances mean that environmental causes continue to be de-prioritized, to the extent that some nations are delaying de-carbonization in their struggle to cope with the fallout from the war.  

So basically, by the end of the last decade, humanity was gearing up to make climate change and other environmental issues top priority, but the crises erupting since then put this concern on the backburner. Ironically, it is humanity’s impacts on the natural environment that are largely behind the struggles of the last two years. The coronavirus pandemic arose as a zoonotic disease from the exploitation of wildlife, like many other emerging diseases in recent times. Habitat destruction forces animals into greater proximity with each other and with humans and the mass harvesting of wildlife that is driving many species to extinction also gives pathogens plenty of opportunity to jump from their natural host to humans or domestic animals. 

The climate crisis also deepened in the past two years, with extreme and unusual weather activity at an all-time high globally. This is responsible for making the current food crisis as bad as it is, because while Ukraine deals with the invasion and Russia deals with the sanctions, practically all of the world’s other breadbaskets have recently been suffering from the most severe droughts, floods, or heat-waves they have ever seen, devastating agricultural yields. 

The war itself has a major environmental component, as wars usually do. The environment within Ukraine is suffering badly. But the biggest concern is over the potential for a huge radiological disaster resulting from the fighting. On day one, Russian forces attacked and seized control of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, an area sealed off because of hazardous radiation lingering from the 1986 disaster. With 15 running nuclear reactors in Ukraine, this is the first war ever fought in an area with so many nuclear power plants. Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia was struck by Russian fire at one point. Fighting has also threatened radioactive waste dumps in Ukraine, in which things such as medical waste are stored.

There is a sobering lesson to be derived from this. When people are impacted by the consequences of manmade environmental degradation, they are likely to be less involved in protecting the environment from such degradation. That’s because humanity’s impact on nature is often indirect, manifesting itself over the long-term or being spread across a wide area, whereas crises affecting people demand urgent attention. To illustrate this further, say a coastal community is cutting down its mangrove forests for clearing space and making a profit. This makes the same community more vulnerable to strong waves. A local movement emerges to raise awareness and save the mangroves, but then, a powerful hurricane strikes the area, devastating the community with its unobstructed storm surge. People struggling in the aftermath are not going to be preoccupied with restoring mangrove forests and may get busy cutting down more trees in order to rebuild shelter and obtain fuel.

Once recovery from the hurricane is complete, the community may be more motivated than before to protect mangroves. But don’t count on that when environment-derived problems arrive in continuous succession, like the global crises we are having all the time nowadays. Because of the immediate benefits it provides, people have long been doing many things that impact nature while environmentalists have constantly been warning that this will ultimately impact people. In the last two years, it is precisely this blowback on people by nature which has been happening more than ever before. 

If we restore and protect all biodiversity right now, it would not end the current pandemic and if we completely halt all greenhouse gas emissions, it will not curb the unrelenting natural disasters happening today. But if we let our current trajectory continue, we are setting up a future in which everything keeps getting worse. So fighting coronavirus may have distracted us from fighting climate change for two years, but as the Ukraine war shows, we can’t wait for things to get back to normal in order to pay attention to environmental security. The old normal is gone. We are going to have to learn how to protect the environment even while we struggle to protect ourselves and get through life’s daily challenges no matter how overwhelming they are. 

How this can be achieved is an open question. But the sooner we begin, the better, before pressure from environmental destruction gets even more severe. We have to keep our eyes open for any opportunities we can make use of. The coronavirus lockdowns famously provided nature a respite, but they cannot be sustained. The pandemic has, however, provided us the opportunity for a “great reset”, guiding us towards ways to redesign life in a more environmentally-friendly way. And the Ukraine war is pushing many nations to accelerate their search for alternatives to fossil fuels, so people would be free of dependence on energy from specific, far-away areas. 

We shouldn’t make the mistake of treating the coronavirus pandemic as a separate issue from climate change. Environmental degradation is a long-term process and disasters are what result from it. When there is a freak, unprecedented weather disaster, it is a product of climate change. Similarly, the coronavirus pandemic is a product of humanity’s encroachment on the world’s natural ecosystems. All forms of environmental degradation are part of the same path the world is going down. Having suffered two years of the worst pandemic of our times should motivate us to safeguard the health of our planet, Earth, more than ever before. 

Author’s bio: Raja Shahzeb Khan is an environmental journalist and director at Pakistan’s People-Led Disaster Management. He tweets at https://twitter.com/justinshahzebkh

PPLDM in print media: The World After Ukraine’s Invasion

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

Just as the world appeared to be on its way out of the health crisis caused by the pandemic, with societies returning to normalcy, the Russian invasion of Ukraine dashed all hopes of the world getting better again (and lately, COVID-19 has been resurging as well). This war is set to have devastating worldwide consequences, adding a new layer of turmoil to what the world has been through for the last two years. The pandemic and associated problems made Russia’s invasion of Ukraine possible in the first place. Would Putin have carried out this invasion back in 2019 or 2018, when world’s leaders weren’t drowning in problems that compromised their ability to respond in a unified manner? 

The war in Ukraine is breeding economic havoc and geopolitical instability, and needless to mention, the two feed each other. Knock-on effects should be expected of Europe’s biggest war since World War 2. WW2 itself was a full-blown domino effect in which Hitler’s invasion of Poland escalated until all the world’s powers were engaged in total war with each other across the globe. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is unlikely to lead to the same outcome (if it did, a nuclear holocaust would likely result), but in a highly globalized (and pandemic-ravaged) world, all sorts of other negative impacts are possible. 

Russia, one of the most powerful countries in the world and Europe’s largest land mass, invading Europe’s second largest country is inevitably making the world more insecure and consequently more militarized. The energy and food crises caused by the war and sanctions against Russia will make life much harder for billions of people. Even the COVID-19 pandemic may be exacerbated. There is no way the world will lock itself down again while struggling with the fallout of the Ukraine-Russia war, and the warzone itself may become a huge coronavirus breeding ground as 44 million Ukrainians flee to other countries, gather in bomb shelters and refugee camps, and struggle to get by.  

What we should be concerned about foremost is that the Russian invasion can act as both a guide and a trendsetter, making wars of aggression more acceptable and offering lessons on how to manage them. Leaders are now less likely to be deterred in implementing their aggressive designs against another nation if they see a lackluster response to the Russian aggression within the collective security regime. China, for instance, is getting the message that the West will not be willing to respond to Chinese invasion of Taiwan with anything more than economic sanctions, which is unworkable as China is the world’s biggest economy. Taking advantage of the global preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, another nation can start a war of its own, anticipating limited or no international blowback. Notice how tensions between Israel and Iran have risen sharply. There has been a perturbing event recently between India and Pakistan, two nuclear armed enemies. India fired an ‘unannounced’ missile into Pakistani territory on March 9, and later declared it was an accident. The missile was a nuclear-capable warhead, and such systems are safeguarded by layers of security, which makes accidents highly unlikely. Pakistan suspects Indians may have been testing Pakistan’s readiness to respond.  

The feeling of insecurity caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is prompting countries to militarize, causing a rise in military spending, which can be devastating during a time nation states have to tend to other new and pressing needs such as climate security and healthcare. It will fuel an arms race all across the globe. There will be a domino effect of massive militarization.

We also must bear in mind that the sanctions imposed by the world’s rich countries may drive Russia to find new friends elsewhere. Russia might carve out for itself a new role on the world stage in which it supports any nation that is at odds with the US-led international order. 

International sanctions are a regular phenomenon, but have previously been used only against poor and marginal countries like Iran, Iraq or Venezuela (also apartheid-era South Africa, though the latter didn’t have such an imposing economy on the world stage). But sanctioning a country like Russia is fraught with multiple blow backs. Russia’s economic importance means the rest of the world will suffer as well. Europe will, in no less measure, suffer particularly from a massive spike in oil and gas prices, as fossil fuels are Russia’s main export and Europe is heavily reliant on Russia for energy. Ukraine’s economy is being utterly devastated. Because Ukraine is a major breadbasket, its devastation is leading to grain shortages and a spike in food prices globally.  

Arms race is fueled by oil and gas, the primary means of industrial productivity. Sanctioning Russia bears negative consequences for European industrial output. It will make Europe more dependent on the US for military hardware while sanctioning Russian gas will make them more reliant on US’ shale gas. What will such dependence entail for European Union’s economic future? EU is the greatest pan-European peace-building experiment in history.

It seems, while the economic fallout of the war primarily impacts productivity in Europe, it will impact consumption in developing world, especially when it comes to food shortages.  While Europe faces a humanitarian situation from the influx of millions of refugees from Ukraine, the developing world will be faced with a greater humanitarian crisis of its own caused by grain shortages resulting from devastation of Ukraine, one of the world’s biggest bread baskets. And that could lead to other upheavals. The last time there was a worldwide spike in food prices, it resulted in the Middle Eastern uprising called the ‘Arab Spring’ as hungry and angry masses started agitating against their rulers. What will today’s food crisis lead to in a world already facing catastrophe upon catastrophe?

It is time to brace ourselves, for the world is heading into yet another abyss. 

Shahzeb Khan is Islamabad-based political analyst. https://twitter.com/justinshahzebkh  

PPLDM in print media: Global impact of Russia-Ukraine war

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

AS one of the most important events of the 21st Century, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will, without a doubt, impact the world in significant ways. However, foreseeing the impacts is hard without the benefit of experience as the current war in Ukraine is unlike any of the countless wars since 1945. As an invasion of a big nation by another big nation, it is akin to the conflicts that made up the Second World War, back when the world was very different from now. But the way the Ukraine invasion parallels the invasions that set off WW2 should alert us to how dangerous the current situation is.

A major war taking place within the developed world is unheard of since 1945. One of the biggest reasons is the advent of nuclear technology, which introduces extreme risks in warfare. Not only do Russia and NATO have the world’s biggest nuclear arsenals, making the current standoff between them a very serious concern, but Ukraine, where the violence is taking place, has 15 nuclear reactors in 4 power plants in operation plus Chernobyl’s hazardous remnants. Another Chernobyl-like disaster caused by kinetic activity has the potential to affect much of Europe, though only a nuclear war would produce enough fallout to endanger the entire world.

A problem materializing now is the war’s economic consequences. A war that takes place in a country as wealthy as Ukraine has very different implications than war in places like Syria and Afghanistan today or Korea and Vietnam back in the mid-twentieth century. The same goes for the way Russia is being subjected to sweeping international sanctions of the kind only small countries like Cuba and Iraq normally experience. Because of this, Western countries are suffering a massive energy crisis.

Other issues include the prospects for Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, a popular vaccine for lower-income countries, now that West is sanctioning Sputnik V’s main financier, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).

While an energy crisis is this war’s main fallout for the developed world, the main impact on the developing world is likely to be a food crisis. Russia and Ukraine are among the biggest exporters of food to hunger-prone low-and-middle income countries, especially in North Africa, the Middle East and West Asia, but costs are now rising.

History may be about to repeat itself. The world was already suffering a global recession since 2008 when extreme weather events in 2010 caused a drop in grain exports from Russia and China, leading to a surge in global food prices so severe as to have triggered the Arab Spring. Now, after two years of the pandemic and associated inflation and supply chain crisis, the world’s breadbaskets in Ukraine and Russia are imperiled. Just like a decade ago, this is likely to turn out to be a disaster that afflicts and, maybe, changes the world, too.

An even bigger risk is how the Ukraine invasion could set off a destabilization of the global security environment. This is actually a fundamental element of the modern world. Austria’s invasion of Serbia in 1914 and Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 rapidly escalated into world wars. Another example is the USSR taking advantage of the world’s attention being diverted by the Suez invasion to invade Hungary in 1956.

There are great fears of today’s war between Russia and Ukraine escalating within Europe, but it could also have knock-on effects far and wide. We are already seeing this happen with Japan ramping up its territorial dispute with Russia over the Kuril Islands. Japan must feel it has a stronger position to assert its claims when Russia is in a vulnerable state due to war with Ukraine and Russia’s unpopularity on the world stage emboldens Japan.

Another way the Russia-Ukraine war leads the world into greater hostility and violence is simply by teaching the world how it is done. The modern combination of rapidly advancing technology and development with rarity of major wars means that many wars that erupt are novel experiences for humanity.

World War 1 was the first war between great powers in the age of high-explosives and other modern weaponry and World War-II was the first when airplanes, tanks and submarines were widely available. Such wars act as a treasure-trove of lessons to drive future wars. For example, in the early days of WW2, planes from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious sank half of Italy’s naval fleet stationed in Taranto. As the first military strike by an aircraft carrier in history, this event is thought to have been closely studied by the Japanese and used as the model for their strike on Pearl Harbour, which escalated WW-II into a global conflict and a nuclear attack.

Nations across the globe are closely observing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the novelties the conflict presents. Everyone is learning how such an invasion can be done and what consequences it can produce. Some will inevitably use the lessons of Russian invasion of Ukraine as a guide for their own kinetic plans of invasions and conquest or resolutions of conflict situations they find themselves in. Think of how the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must be making China reassess its risks of retaking Taiwan.

Note that India fired a missile into Pakistan on 9 March and calls it an accident. But is it an accident or a test-fire by a bigger neighbour with well-known belligerent design against Pakistan?

Bottom line is that Russia invading Ukraine, a nation of forty-four million people and the second largest in Europe, will encourage similar aggressive behaviour around the world and that might be the principal way this war changes the world.

—The writer is Director at Pakistan’s People Led Disaster Management.

PPLDM in print: SMART VACCINATION SHOULD BE OUR STRATEGY

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

PURSUANT to my last article in Pakistan Observer titled Omicron: COVID-19’s Great Leap Forward, instant piece is on meeting the logistical challenge of vaccinating the world fast enough to effectively control the virus.

Vaccines are most important tool for fighting the pandemic. Since they arrived in late 2020, rollout has been way too slow, especially in lower-income countries. Additionally, two big setbacks have befallen the global vaccination campaign; waning immunity in vaccinated people and arrival of variants that can evade immunity, creating the need for additional doses.

We are now in a particularly critical situation due to the Omicron surge bringing record-high hospitalizations and fatalities. The current drop in Omicron’s spread, no doubt because of the changing season, is giving us some breathing space, but vaccination still has to race against Omicron.

This poses a serious challenge. Some recommend just letting Omicron, given its lowered virulence, spread and deliver herd immunity to end the pandemic, but as explained in my aforementioned piece, Omicron is still a dangerous virus and high coronavirus prevalence makes creation of mutant strains more likely.

We need to ramp up our vaccine efforts to prevent the global health catastrophe from getting worse. Scientists are racing to create further developments in vaccination. Some promising ideas include nasal vaccines, “universal vaccines” meant to target any coronavirus variant, and Corbevax, which is open-source and easy to copy. But right now, we have to work with what we already have. An effective strategy, crafted so that vaccines keep up with the coronavirus, is needed.

What we need to do more than anything else is to vaccinate first the people most likely to catch COVID-19.

To do this, vaccines must be primarily administered in the areas where the virus is spreading the most or is most likely to spread. Such a strategy is relatively easy. Here’s why.

COVID-19 spreads faster in high-income societies and urban areas. Thus, after appearing in Wuhan, the coronavirus spread through developed countries, travel hubs and the world’s major cities first. Omicron did the same after it first appeared in South Africa. These are the same environments where most of the world’s COVID-19 vaccination has taken place, because networks of human interactions enable not just the spread of communicable diseases but the supply of medicine as well.

In a way, there is fairness in how big countries like India and the United States chose to vaccinate their own people first. They have had the highest COVID-19 case counts – and not just because they are best at detecting COVID.

Taking cognizance of this factor, we can tune it further. Closely aligning vaccine supply chain networks with the virus’s transmission networks is the most effective way to ensure maximum number of people get immunized before being exposed to the virus(this being the whole point of vaccination). Since vaccines have some ability to prevent Omicron transmission, this strategy will also play a part in blocking COVID-19 in its tracks.

To achieve the strategy proposed here, monitoring is needed to accurately quantify the rate of COVID-19 spread in every area. Right now, we are mostly delivering COVID-19 vaccines by telling people to come to clinics to receive their shots, putting the onus on them. That should change. Vaccinators should come to the people by operating in places where people usually gather or pass through, like markets, schools, airports, train stations, festivals, rallies and workplaces.

At present, our two aims are getting vaccines to people not vaccinated before and giving booster shots to people who are already vaccinated. Both these activities must race against the fast spreading Omicron, and we should consider giving priority to the second activity, since already-vaccinated populations are where Omicron variant is spreading through.

By late 2021, when richest areas and biggest cities were mostly done being vaccinated, vaccinators spread their effort out to more dispersed populations. But when Omicron appeared in November, vaccine distributors should have shifted course to delivering booster shots back in the commercial hubs and metropolises. It was those very places where Omicron was seeded all around the world.

Ultimately, what we need most to beat the pandemic are vaccines that effectively block transmission. The nasal-spray COVID vaccines currently under development are a promising prospect, as they are being designed to focus immunity build-up along the upper airways, where coronavirus enters and exits. Each shot, therefore, protects more than just the person who gets it. Nasal-spray vaccines could finally end the pandemic, but for now, our effort must be focused on administering vaccines in hubs of COVID-19 transmission and thus keeping the pandemic on a leash till more effective solutions come to market.

Smart lockdowns are, by now, a familiar concept. The “Smart Vaccination Strategy” proposed here is based on similar principle and will achieve best results.

—The writer is Director at Pakistan’s People-Led Disaster Management.