Devastating torrents: Raging waters slam D G Khan, Rajanpur

As torrential rains continued to wreak havoc countrywide, the Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan districts of Punjab, where a state of emergency has been declared, were the worst-hit regions in the country.

Army troops had been called to join rescue work as heavy downpours set off hill torrents in the two districts on Sunday night, while the nuclear facility in D G Khan was also reportedly inundated, causing panic and fear among the concerned authorities, an official told The Express Tribune.

“Wadore torrent (a torrent that comes from the hills and into the river) hit DG Khan for the first time in history, and has devastated the whole city. The length of the torrent is roughly around 45 miles while it is around 15 miles wide. It has inundated a vast area and displaced around 0.7 million people in the area,” said Punjab chief minister’s senior adviser Senator Sardar Zulfiqar Khan Khosa.

The torrent, which flows adjacent to the nuclear installation in D G Khan, was diverted overnight by the concerned authorities towards the city. However, despite this extreme measure, the torrents entered the facility and inundated a vast area of the installation, officials in the local administration, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and the military told The Express Tribune.

The city is protected by three barriers: local bunds, the D G Khan Canal and the railway line, an official said, adding that torrents which pass from Wadore hardly ever reached the D G Khan Canal.

The officials added that the unexpected water flow forced officials at the nuclear facility to direct the local administration to allow the breaching of the D G Khan Canal and the railway lines in order to reduce water pressure on the side of the nuclear installations. More

This is the third year in a row that Pakistan has had devastating flooding. It is readily apparent that the country needs a major initiative in flood mitigation. This can encompass reforestation, and the planting of plants like Vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopogon_zizanioides> used in conjunction with on contour swales to control runoff on hillsides that lack vegetation. Several aspects of vetiver make it an excellent erosion control plant in warmer climates. Unlike most grasses, it does not form a horizontal mat of roots; rather, the roots grow almost exclusively downward, 2–4 m, which is deeper than some tree roots.[3] This makes vetiver an excellent stabilizing hedge for stream banks, terraces, and rice paddies, and protects soil from sheet erosion. The roots bind to the soil, therefore it can not dislodge. The plant also penetrates and loosens compacted soils. Editor

 

Pakistan's climate change challenge

Last month, an avalanche on the Siachen glacier in Kashmir killed 124 Pakistani soldiers and 11 civilians. The tragedy has intensified debate about the logic of stationing Pakistani and Indian troops on such inhospitable terrain. And it has also brought attention to Pakistan's environmental insecurity.

Siachen is rife with glacial melt; one study concludes the icy peak has retreated nearly two kilometers in less than 20 years. It has also been described as "the world's highest waste dump." Much of this waste-generated from soldiers' food, fuel, and equipment-eventually finds its way to the Indus River Basin, Pakistan's chief water source.

Siachen, in fact, serves as a microcosm of Pakistan's environmental troubles. The nation experiences record-breaking temperatures, torrential rains (nearly 60 percent of Pakistan's annual rainfall comes from monsoons), drought, and glacial melt (Pakistan's United Nations representative, Hussain Haroon, contends that glacial recession on Pakistani mountains has increased by 23 percent over the past decade). Experts estimate that about a quarter of Pakistan's land area and half of its population are vulnerable to climate change-related disasters, and several weeks ago Sindh's environment minister said that millions of people across the province face "acute environmental threats."

Pakistan's environmental insecurity is not merely a matter of nasty weather. In three specific ways, it also threatens the country's fragile stability.

The last two years have provided ample proof of Pakistan's climate-change vulnerability. According to climatologists, the devastating floods of 2010-which submerged a fifth of the country and displaced millions-constituted "the worst natural disaster to date attributable to climate change" (a judgment rendered in 2010). They argued that a combination of high temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and lower ones in the Pacific "created the perfect conditions" for the deluge.

The floods' destructiveness was exacerbated by Pakistan's rampant deforestation. UN data andPakistani media reports paint an alarming picture of this emissions-releasing scourge: Pakistan suffers from the highest annual rate of deforestation in Asia (the nation lost 33 percent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2010), with barely 2 percent of the country's total area remaining forested today. One of the prime perpetrators is the Pakistani Taliban, which has long recognized the revenue-generating potential of logging. During its rule over Swat in northern Pakistan, the Taliban's timber sales eliminated up to 15 percent of the picturesque region's forest cover. Separately, back in the 1990s, wealthy landowners in Sindh ordered laborers to clear forestland for crop cultivation; one small village alone lost 10,000 acres of forest. In both Swat and Sindh, the loss of forestland has facilitated riverbank erosion and deprived the country of a natural bulwark against raging floodwaters. More