Senator Sherry Rehman on Wednesday blamed unregulated construction, outdated early warning systems, and a lack of critical data from ministries for the devastation wreaked by this year’s monsoon rains.
Chairing a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change, she noted that Pakistan’s climate crisis was exacerbated by poor planning and outdated technology. “This is not a one-off tragedy—this is climate change in motion, and Pakistan is ranked number one in climate vulnerability,” she said, noting rain-related incidents killed 242 people between June 26 and July 22, and injured 598 others. “In just the past 24 hours, 21 people have died and six were injured,” she said.
Criticizing unplanned construction in natural waterways, she said this practice had facilitated preventable deaths and destruction of infrastructure in areas like Saidpur Village and DHA Rawalpindi. “We cannot call this a natural disaster anymore,” she said. “That absolves us of responsibility. These are human-induced disasters fueled by poor planning and inaction in the face of climate change,” she added.
During the meeting, the committee noted that Pakistan lacks a modern early warning system and still relies on technology from 1912 to issue warnings.
Further, Rehman observed, no ministry was able to provide a map of Pakistan’s groundwater extraction despite the country’s severe water crisis. Appearing before the committee, officials of the water resource ministry were unable to provide data on per capita surface water consumption or a precise count of active tube wells. They said the country had 160,000 tube wells in 1975-76, which had grown to 1.39 million by 2017-18, boosting groundwater depletion.
The senator lamented that despite the country being declared water scarce by the United Nations, there was no allocation for harvesting water or similar planning in the Public Sector Development Program. She said the government had similarly done no meaningful work on recharge wells or other rainwater conservation methods.
“The world is prioritizing this, but in Pakistan, we are stuck in inertia,” she said.
The committee directed provincial authorities to present latest reports and action plans on groundwater conditions, tube well regulation, and rainwater harvesting at its next meeting.