NAROWAL, Pakistan: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday stressed the urgent need to expand the country’s water storage infrastructure to mitigate the impact of devastating flash floods, warning that such disasters are likely to recur in the coming years due to climate change.
Heavy monsoon rain and devastating flash floods have wreaked havoc across South Asia country, particularly in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab province since late June.
Chairing a high-level meeting to review the flood situation across the country, PM Sharif said enhancing storage capacity was critical and urged immediate action. Punjab province has suffered major losses as rivers swell after India released water from two dams.
“Storage capacity is the need of the hour, and without wasting any more time, we should start work in this regard,” the prime minister emphasised.
PM Sharif stressed the importance of generating resources to fund the construction of dams and water reservoirs across the country, which is bearing the heaviest cost due to climate change. “We will have to generate the resources by ourselves,” the premier said.
The Prime Minister said that projects like the Diamer-Bhasha Dam must be completed without further delay.
PM Sharif noted that while floods initially hit the country’s northern areas, they were now wreaking havoc in the plains areas of the Punjab province.
Recalling the devastating 2022 floods in Sindh and Balochistan provinces, PM Shehbaz warned that Pakistan remains among the top ten most climate-vulnerable countries, resulting in such disasters likely to “recur in coming years”.
The Prime Minister called for short, medium, and long-term strategies to strengthen the country’s disaster preparedness and response.
Chief Minister of Punjab Maryam Nawaz said over 50,000 people were rescued from the flood affected areas.
CM Maryam directed authorities to drain floodwater urgently from the Kartarpur Corridor and Gurdwara Guru Nanak, one of the holiest sites of Sikhism. The Gurdwara is situated in the Narowal district of Punjab.
The Chief Minister also ordered activation of field hospitals, deployment of 1,000 mobile clinics, and sufficient vaccine supplies to ensure healthcare facilities to the flood affected communities.
CM Maryam said around 200 kilometres of roads had been damaged due to the recent floods and ordered immediate restoration of temporary routes to maintain connectivity.
The country’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal highlighted climate change as a pressing but manageable challenge if gaps in disaster response were addressed. He noted that, unlike Pakistan, neighbouring India suffered less damage due to stronger infrastructure.
The Planning Minister warned that connectivity had been severely disrupted, requiring bulldozers and heavy machinery to restore access and medical coverage.
Earlier, NDMA Chairman Lieutenant General Inam Haider briefed the meeting on the overall flood situation in Punjab.
