Pakistan Business Forum (PBF) has called for effective planning to cope up the future challenges of the climate changes which it said had placed Pakistan at the crossroads with the fact of encompassing the third biggest ice mass of the world and simultaneously, confronting the sharply surging temperatures of the region.
Dr Urwa Elahi, additional secretary general of case studies and research unit of PBF, has noted that the impressions were severe in Pakistan where around 30 million people are affected and potential damage was consistently on the rise.
“High temperatures warming the Arabian Sea coupled with the weather warping effects of la Nina brought deadly precipitations in Pakistan where glacial melt further added to the misery,” she noted.
Quoting Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman, she further elaborated that a one-third of the country was under water, presenting a sight of an ocean with rare or no patches of land, after the recent floods. “A sight of plight indeed as the people, livestock and the infrastructure have drowned under 10 or more feet of water,” she quoted.
She further pointed out even more unfortunate was the fact that the torrential rains system and the potential floods risk was quite persistent threatening what is left as refuge and said Extreme floods are followed by extreme droughts as water tends to flow into sea during flood than leaching into the soil ironically inducing a water shortage.
She further noted that with a hastily estimated $30 billion loss to economy the terror of this deadly flood was yet unfolding in the other dependent sectors including food, agriculture to health and infrastructure. The human security index hit lowest in the wake of natural disaster across the state that simultaneously opened multiple fronts, for the government, requiring immediate attention.
She emphasized that a multi-pronged approach must be devised to tackle the contingent devastation and overcome the exposed fault-lines for future. “The hardest hit is the agricultural sector that faces an unprecedented loss of assortments as 50 percent of crop washed away with tides of flood,” she pointed out.
PBF official stated under the open skies surrounded with polluted water the people were exposed to all kinds of mosquitoes, flies, snakes as well as other water and airborne diseases. The discharge of water was still not fully materialized, thus, supplementing to the deteriorated conditions in the longer run. Unfortunately, some of the medical and food aids were also robbed by the corrupt mafia though means of displacement and storage in cold stores.
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