Forgotten Floods of Balochistan

It is accepted that the magnitude of Kashmir/Balakot Earthquake was huge and the loss was gigantic, but the destructions caused by the floods in the wake of cyclone Yemyin in Balochistan are also huge, and it’s also a calamity of big scale. There is no serious national campaign to relieve the sufferings of people in there, neither there is any noticeable efforts could be seen on the part of civil society.

The district-wise data collected by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Balochistan showed that more than two million people were became the victims where the cyclone Yemyin hit. Almost 0.15 million people were displaced and 195 people were still missing. Another loss was of cattle, and according to PDMA 0.2 cattle were lost during the catastrophe. According to the PDMA findings, overall 5000 villages were flooded with water where infrastructure was also ruined. The reposts reveal that 429 kilometers of National Highway Authority (NHA) roads were washed away while 5581 kilometers long provincial roads were also affected by the flood. Multiple telephone exchanges were also destructed by the storms.

And this all has happened in the province, which already lacks any infrastructure. And this happened in the province, which already is very backward, and people are living below standard. And this happened in the province, which is the biggest yet poorest of the lot of four in Pakistan. And this happened in the province, where the “Sardars” suck-up all the resources while keep the common people suffering in the name of freakin’ “great and ancient traditions.”

Efforts were done from the government side to ease the sufferings of people, but most of them were just cosmetics. Even authorities failed to collect any correct data. According to a newspaper report, an international donor agency said that the level of authenticity of the government’s data could be gauged from the fact that in many areas it showed number of affectees as much more than the real number of population.

People from all over the Pakistan and also Karachi rushed to Muzaffarabad and other areas of Kashmir thousands of miles away, but the strange thing is that why didn’t the same example was repeated in Balochistan, especially by the Karachiites?

Disclaimer: I am not promoting provincial differences, and I am not a nationalist. Rather I am for the federation and union, and I am strictly anti-feudal.