Red zone reality: a race for climate readiness

In what language does rain fall

Over tormented cities?

-Pablo Nerudo

Night falls over Karachi. Rain lashes down, lightning cracks the sky. Shahrah-e-Faisal, Ittehad, Karsaz, University Road, Super Highway – every artery of the city becomes a river. The traffic signs on I.I. Chundrigar for rush hour tidal flow take on a literal meaning.

People stuck for hours, wading through chest-high water. Strangers, trying to help each other, push lifeless cars and bikes stuck in potholes. The now-repeating scenes of chaos, dread, anger, then defeat unfold. A city mourning its long-lost glory of once being the ‘Paris of the East’ now drowns in its own neglect.

Hundreds of miles away, in the Khizer Valley of Gilgit-Baltistan, shepherd Wasiyat Khan watches his world collapse. A glacial lake bursts, swallowing homes and livestock. There is no early warning system (EWS). Only the frantic phone calls Wasiyat makes to neighbors, buying them a few precious minutes to flee.

In Buner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), a grim morning. The skies split open and unleash torrential rage. Flash floods rip through villages. This year, KP has paid a heavy price with almost 500 souls claimed by the floods so far.

And now, in Punjab, the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rise as one. Muhammad Iqbal, a small rice farmer, once hopeful of a good harvest, now stands helplessly as his village is swallowed whole by the roiling waters of the Chenab, defiantly breaking through flimsy bunds that dared to claim effectiveness against such ancient fury. By the time the Rescue-1122 boats reached, it was beyond too late.

His story echoes across the province.

So far, over 4,100 villages submerged across 25 districts, nearly 60 lives lost, over 4.1 million people affected, and over 1.3 million acres of agricultural land inundated.

Across Pakistan, the story repeats. Louder, deadlier, costlier. Yet none of this came without warning.

In 2010, one-fifth of Pakistan was covered in floodwater. About 20 million people affected, nearly 2,000 killed, and 10 million internally displaced. Damage to crops, livestock, and infrastructure was catastrophic. Scientists called it a turning point. That year, Pakistan leapt from 29th to 16th on the Climate Change Vulnerability Index and was declared a ‘red zone’.

The primary causes of this devastation were natural (unprecedented rain, river system overload, and glacial melt) exacerbated by those that were man-made (deforestation and land mismanagement, poor infrastructure and maintenance, and lack of preparedness and early warning, among many).

Fifteen years later, little has changed. Except the stakes. Germanwatch’s Climate Risk Index 2025 ranked Pakistan as the world’s most climate-affected country.

Effective Emergency, Disaster and Crises (EDC) management is more than just reactive disaster response. It is a system which comprises at least four interlinked phases:

1. Prevention: coordinated capabilities to prevent, or reduce exposure to, a threat or hazard. This includes protective measures;

2. Preparedness: planning, organizing, equipping, training to minimize the likelihood and/or impact of a threat or hazard;

3. Response: swift action when disaster strikes;

4. Recovery: rebuilding lives, livelihoods and infrastructure for the long-term.

EDC management is not just important at an aggregate national level, but more critically requires a strongly grounded and tailored approach cascaded down to the village-council. It requires heightened and proactive coordination and collaboration across all agencies responsible.

Despite repeated warnings from climate scientists and global risk indices, Pakistan’s threats and hazards management strategy remains dangerously fragmented. The lack of investment and coordination across Preventive and Preparedness measures continues to magnify disaster impacts.

In Buner District, floodplain zoning exists – on paper. Yet homes and markets are rebuilt along dangerous riverbanks, swept away season after season. Weak enforcement turns preventive planning into fiction.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, over 3,000 glacial lakes pose outburst threats. Large-scale barriers and drainage systems remain absent. Worse still, Preparedness is virtually non-existent. EWSs are either absent or cover a small fraction of vulnerable zones, leaving communities with little time to evacuate or safeguard assets. The much-lauded GLOF II project claims 92 EWSs, but locals insist that the only reliable alerts come from phone calls between villagers.

In Karachi, Protective measures are compromised by years of neglect and poor planning.

Outdated drainage networks and non-functional tidal gates are compounded by illegal encroachments on nullahs (stormwater drains), reducing water flow capacity and resulting in catastrophic urban flooding during heavy monsoons. New roads crack. Old promises wash away.

In Punjab, the wrath of the rivers met defenses already crumbling. Some were deliberately breached when the waters rose, turning farmland into sacrificial lakes. Floodplains crowded with much advertised housing colonies, markets and reclaimed land, left no space to escape. Riverine forests have been stripped bare. And early warnings, if any, are always too late.

Community-level Preparedness failures cut across all regions. There is no top-down planning.

Disaster drills are rare, local evacuation routes are poorly marked, and public awareness campaigns are sporadic at best. Many residents in flood-prone areas remain unaware of high-risk zones, safe shelters, or emergency response protocols.

These are just a few examples of what could have been done to, at the very least, reduce the impact of climate threats and hazards. Effectively implemented Preventive and preparedness measures can not only reduce loss and damage, but also the resources required for response and recovery.

Every dollar invested in disaster resilience saves four in avoided losses for low and middle-income countries, according to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

EWSs alone can cut damage by ~30 percent, at a fraction of post-disaster relief costs.

Yet, Pakistan’s focus continues to be reactive response. That too – always too late, always too little. A cursory review of current Response and Recovery capabilities reveals alarming inadequacies.

Response capabilities continue to face structural shortfalls, marked by delayed mobilization, fragmented coordination, and limited access to vulnerable areas. In both the 2022 and 2024 floods, emergency aid was slow to reach remote districts, where washed-out roads and inadequate pre-positioning of relief supplies left millions stranded. Search-and-rescue operations relied heavily on military assets, underscoring the lack of trained civilian response teams and proper disaster management infrastructure.

Health and shelter provisions were similarly strained.

Currently, over 4.1 million flood-affected in Punjab are at the mercy of just over 400 critically under-equipped camps with not enough tents and provisions to go around. Recovery efforts reveal deeper systemic gaps. Following the 2022 floods, damage was estimated at over USD 30 billion, with reconstruction needs pegged at USD 16.3 billion.

A hefty bill for shallow pockets! Expectedly, progress has been slow, leaving millions in precarious conditions.

The latest floods have further exposed gaps in resilient infrastructure, housing reconstruction, and financial mobilization.

Pakistan cannot afford to stumble through another decade of half-measures and hollow pledges.

The rain-soaked streets of Karachi. The trembling hands of Wasiyat Khan. The uprooted families of Buner. The desolation of Muhammad Iqbal. These are not isolated scenes; they are warnings of a nation’s future.

Disasters are no longer seasonal, they are systemic. What is needed is a comprehensive, well-funded, and locally embedded EDC system, one that is relentlessly stripped of corruption, that anticipates danger, acts swiftly, and rebuilds stronger. Without this, the line between temporary devastation and irreversible loss will vanish.

Let’s not create a perfect storm of our own. One that sweeps away the hope of Recovery itself, leaving a nation stranded in the floodwaters of its own inaction.

The article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Business Recorder or its owners.