Why is Pakistan so vulnerable to deadly flooding?

Islamabad, Pakistan – More than 120 people have died in Pakistan due to climate-related incidents in the past three weeks, as the country braces for the onset of the monsoon season.

In its latest situation report, released on Wednesday, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) revealed that a total of 124 people, including 63 children, have perished across the country since June 26.

The NDMA has found that about two-thirds of the deaths were caused by house collapses and flash floods, while drowning accounted for just more than one in 10 of the deaths.

Pakistan, which has a population in excess of 250 million, is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change.

It has experienced repeated environmental disasters, most notably the devastating floods of 2022, which killed nearly 1,700 people and displaced more than 30 million nationwide, who lost their homes and livestock or suffered crop damage or losses.

According to estimates at the time, the 2022 floods caused $14.8bn in damage to property and land and a loss of $15.2bn in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Pakistan’s government blames the lack of assistance from the international community in urgently addressing the climate emergency, which is causing flash floods and other disasters. However, some experts say the government’s inaction has compounded the current situation.

Which areas are the most affected by climate-related disasters?

The latest figures from the NDMA show that the provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa suffered the most deaths, with 49 and 38, respectively, since June 24.

Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab, saw heavy, intermittent rains last week which left several low-lying areas in the city without electricity and resulted in severe waterlogging of the city’s narrow streets. Other areas in central and southern Punjab also suffered heavy rainfall, with the country’s meteorological department predicting further rain in the coming days.

Similarly, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where at least nine people of one family drowned in Swat River while having a picnic last month, also faced heavy rain in various areas.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has warned that another strong monsoon weather system will hit most parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the next few days, while Punjab is expected to receive heavy showers.

An NDMA official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media, told Al Jazeera that, according to weather forecasting, the authority is not expecting a repeat of 2022-like “large-scale riverine floods at this stage”.

But the official added that localised flash floods and urban flooding remain a significant concern across the country.

“The NDMA has issued early warnings and advisories to provincial authorities and the public and has pre-positioned critical relief supplies at vulnerable locations. We continue to monitor the situation through satellite-based systems, weather models, and real-time ground reporting,” the official added.

How is climate change affecting the crisis?

South Asian nations, including Pakistan, typically receive 70 to 80 percent of their annual rainfall during the monsoon season, which lasts from late June to September. This year, damage caused by monsoons is compounded by extreme heat in the country’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, dubbed the “third pole” as it is home to many of the world’s important glaciers.

According to the PMD, parts of the mountainous region recorded temperatures above 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit), despite being situated at least 1,200 metres (4,000ft) above sea level.

Gilgit-Baltistan is home to thousands of glaciers and attracts climbers from across the globe. A study last year by Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change and the Italian research institute EvK2CNR estimated that the country hosts more than 13,000 glaciers.

Excessive heat has accelerated the melting of these glaciers this year, heightening the risk of floods and infrastructure damage, as well as posing a severe threat to life, land and water security.

Sitara Parveen, an environmentalist and assistant professor at Fatima Jinnah Degree College in Gilgit, said the June heatwave triggered rapid glacial melting, with temperatures in some areas breaking nearly three-decade records.

“However, risk of floods with monsoon is high, considering the evidence from ‘Little Ice Age’, where precipitation remained high with high temperature and there was less precipitation with low temperature,” Parveen told Al Jazeera.

The “Little Ice Age” was a period of regional cooling, primarily affecting the North Atlantic, from the early 14th to the mid-19th centuries.

Zakir Hussein, director general for Gilgit Baltistan’s disaster management authority, told Al Jazeera: “Given the rise in temperatures and anthropogenic climate change, the fragile ecosystem in Gilgit Baltistan is facing imminent flash flooding and risk of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) – a type of flood caused by the sudden release of water from a glacial lake.”

Who is to blame for the crisis in Pakistan?

Pakistan says the international community is not doing enough to help.

In 2023, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres argued that the international community is obligated to provide assistance, as Pakistan is responsible for only half a percent of global greenhouse emissions but its people are 15 times more likely to die from climate-related disasters.

Following the 2022 floods, Pakistan hosted a global donor conference with support from the UN in January 2023, at which approximately $10bn was pledged by donor nations – albeit much in the form of loans. But by 2024, Pakistan had received only $2.8bn of those pledges.

Earlier this year, a former head of Pakistan’s central bank said the country would need annual investments of $40-50bn until 2050 to address its escalating climate challenges.

However, while Pakistan faces genuine climate risks, some experts argue the crisis has been worsened by longstanding governance failures and poor policy decisions.

In several recent incidents, civilian casualties in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were traced to the illegal construction of homes near riverbeds and flash floods sweeping away poorly built houses.

A 2023 report by UN-Habitat, which promotes environmentally sustainable cities and towns, highlighted Pakistan’s problem of disorganised urban planning, revealing that rapid rural-to-urban migration has led to sprawling slums due to an acute housing shortage.

“This unmet demand has led to over 50 percent of the urban population residing in slums or informal settlements known as katchi abadis,” the report stated.

NDMA officials say the agency has taken a multi-tiered preparedness approach where the focus is not just on emergency response, but also risk reduction and early evacuation.

“We have issued risk maps for vulnerable districts, and provincial governments are in the process of mobilising district administrations to identify and, where necessary, relocate communities at high risk, particularly those living near nullahs (watercourses), riverbanks and landslide-prone hills,” one official said.

What do the experts say?

Pakistani climate experts say that while climate change is a serious concern, its effect has been compounded by institutional failures.

“The damages and the loss you are seeing is a cost of inaction,” said Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, an Islamabad-based climate expert. He added that houses continue to be built in riverbeds in clear violation of the laws. “How is that the fault of monsoon rain?”

Sheikh said Pakistan’s lack of urban planning and absence of preparedness have left people vulnerable to a variety of hazards, including riverine flooding, urban flooding and extreme heatwaves.

“These are separate categories of challenges, and the scale of damage, both to people and infrastructure, varies because they have different dimensions of losses,” he said.

Sheikh also criticised the government’s failure to implement meaningful climate reforms, highlighting that its response has been limited to securing foreign loans and launching projects without internal structural changes.

“I cannot think of a single policy reform that the government has taken after the 2022 floods, despite all the tall claims made by the ministers and other officials. Internal-focused driven reforms to enhance the preparedness of communities in vulnerable areas is completely missing,” he said.

“We are a reform-averse society, and we don’t want to undertake any change that is substantial in nature, and this attitude only perpetuates vulnerabilities.”

Neither the NDMA nor the Ministry of Housing and Works responded to questions from Al Jazeera about these issues.