Sutlej floods

CLIMATE change-related devastation seems to have become such an ordinary feature of our news cycle that it does not appear to be arousing the same level of angst as our more ephemeral problems do. With national attention focused more on political and economic challenges, widespread devastation continues in Punjab along the Sutlej, which has swelled manifold to reportedly its highest level in 35 years, inundating vast areas along its banks. The flooding was triggered by the flow of large volumes of water into Pakistan from India, where heavy monsoons in the north of the country — rainfall was reported as almost three times the norm in the Ladakh region, for example — have fed the river and forced it to spill its banks. Satellite images captured by Nasa’s Earth Observatory depict a huge level of flooding in both countries, with before and after images of the Sutlej taken around mid-June and mid-August showing how radically the landscape has changed in a very short while.

With hundreds of thousands of citizens already relocated, efforts to secure affected populations and move them to safer lands are still ongoing. Thankfully, the authorities have been proactive in their rescue operations, managing to move thousands of residents and livestock from hundreds of settlements in the fertile plains alongside the Indus’s easternmost tributary to safer locations before there could be any major loss of life. The Punjab relief commissioner believes life will be back to normal “soon”, and the people will eventually be able to return to their homes, but that is unlikely to be the end of this episode. Vast tracts of cropland have been submerged, and their produce may be destroyed by the time the waters recede. There will also be new health challenges in the affected areas arising from waterborne diseases, which will require timely action by the provincial authorities.

Within a year of 2022’s catastrophic monsoon and the floods that followed, we are witnessing a rerun of the disasters wrought on our lands by climate change. The locus may have shifted to another geographical area, but the worst effects of the damage done to the global environment by developed nations are again being faced by the vulnerable populations of the Global South. With COP28 just a few months away, Pakistan, India and all other nations bearing the brunt of climate disaster must join forces and seek the operationalisation of the agreement to compensate countries for loss and damage arising from climate change, which was reached at the conference last year. Key issues like who is to pay, who will benefit, and what amount will be allocated to the loss and damage fund have yet to be decided, and, with time already having run out for the people of the subcontinent, the matter needs urgent attention.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2023

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