When it rained in Pakistan...

An image that haunts...

The child that you see sucking at an empty bottle is two-year old Reza Khan. He draws at empty air, while swarms of flies cover nearly every inch of his tender, infant skin. What is alarming is: he makes no attempt to swat away the flies; he is resigned as it were to his discomfort. Disturbing as it is, this is an image that needs to be put up before the world - it is the face of the flood crisis in Pakistan.

    In July 2010, heavy rains in different parts of Pakistan gave birth to devastating floods, with overwhelming statistics: 2000 dead, a million homes destroyed, and 21 million people rendered homeless. Even as the Pakistan pleads for aid from agencies across the world, the toll from diseases like cholera, malnutrition, sanitation problems, continues to mount. The infrastructure has been heavily damaged, and there is en extreme crisis of food still prevalent in the stricken areas.

   Floods are natural calamities, and there is, to my knowledge, no human power that can yet perfectly predict or stop a flood from occurring. What needs to be asked is - how can a flood have an impact so negative that even a month later, the crisis remains unsolved? This is a nation where the government reeks of inefficiency, corruption and political gimmickry. The government's response to the crisis has been disappointing and slow, to say the least. In face of humanitarian crisis, it did not make an attempt to sort out the problem as fast as possible; instead it delayed, even rejecting India's offer for aid initially before accepting it some two weeks later. Doubts have also been expressed as to whether the funds would actually reach the victims, or be drained away without a trace through the complicated web of corruption.

   A government's basic job is to look after the welfare of its people in the most efficient possible way. The government in this case would do well to remember this simplistic definition. In face of this crisis, the most immediate measures that could have been taken were instant evacuation, setting up refugee camps with appropriate sanitation and food supply to meet at least the basic calorie requirements. But perhaps to expect even this is utopia.

   Governments in developing countries across the world should best view these floods as an uneasy example of what goes wrong when disasters are not managed competently. Proper precautionary and post-disaster measures need to be prepared. Otherwise, every instance of heavy rain, drought, earthquake, fire, famine would create chaos.

    Meanwhile, Reza's bottle remain's empty...