The Scars of the Floods - Pakistan Struggles to Start Over
Muhammad Ayaz used to run a hotel in northwestern Pakistan. Then the Swat River flooded and washed away his village.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 More than 33 million people affected,
00:08 one third of the country submerged.
00:10 The 2022 floods in Pakistan were devastating.
00:13 The South Asian state is responsible for less than 1%
00:17 of global greenhouse gas emissions,
00:19 but it is disproportionately impacted
00:21 by the effects of climate change.
00:22 18 months after the heavy floods,
00:24 many are still struggling to rebuild their lives.
00:29 The night before the flooding started, we had everything.
00:32 Today, all we have is our health.
00:34 Nothing else remains.
00:38 I'm worried about what will happen.
00:39 Besides God, we don't expect help from anyone.
00:42 I've gone to the government, but nobody does anything for us.
00:46 The authorities have sounded the alarm bells.
00:49 The dystopia has already come to our doorsteps.
00:52 A lack of measures domestically, as well as
00:55 insufficient international assistance,
00:57 will continue to affect the most vulnerable communities
01:00 in the country.
01:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:04 By the afternoon, we had realized
01:16 that the river level was rising.
01:19 It wasn't unusual.
01:20 We experienced that in the 2010 and 2020 floods as well.
01:24 In 2020, we had left our area, but this time,
01:27 we decided to stay.
01:28 Later in the afternoon, we sent the children
01:30 to another location.
01:32 We waited for the water to recede.
01:34 It had been raining for three to four days.
01:36 By the evening, the water level was still increasing.
01:40 We took shelter somewhere, and that's
01:42 the last thing we remember.
01:45 When we woke up the next day, both our hotel and our house
01:48 were swept away by the flood.
01:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:53 Located in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
01:56 province, Bahrain was once a bustling tourist destination.
01:59 Due to its landscape, the area is
02:02 referred to as the Switzerland of the East.
02:04 Tourism was the mainstay of the economy,
02:06 contributing over 37% of Sawar district's income.
02:10 Nowadays, it looks more like a giant construction site.
02:13 Around 90% to 95% of the people in Bahrain
02:20 are currently jobless.
02:22 Floods swept away everything.
02:25 Between 10 to 20 employees were employed in our hotel.
02:28 Today, I myself am jobless.
02:30 Only me and my God knows how I'm surviving.
02:34 In the floods, Ayaz lost his family business,
02:37 a three-star hotel.
02:38 The loss hit the family hard, and almost everyone
02:41 had to make sacrifices.
02:43 Our family's sole source of income was the hotel.
02:49 My older brother was the co-owner, along with my father,
02:52 and we all used to run the business together.
02:55 My younger brother, who studied for his master's in economics,
02:58 has been unemployed for the last year or so.
03:01 He's now leaving for Dubai.
03:04 My youngest brother was studying accounting,
03:07 but due to our financial situation,
03:09 he had to quit his studies.
03:11 The government announced financial assistance
03:13 of 400,000 rupees, about 1,300 euros,
03:16 to residents whose houses were destroyed.
03:20 We often go to the bank, but we're told the Pakistan
03:23 Disaster Management Authority is responsible for the payment.
03:27 Then I go to the commissioner.
03:29 Everyone sends me to another official or department.
03:33 You can't do much with 400,000 rupees,
03:36 but we would have gotten the feeling that our government
03:38 cares about us.
03:39 Sadly, that didn't happen.
03:44 That's what I'm saying.
03:46 400,000 rupees are like pennies these days.
03:50 When officials came and noted down our losses,
03:52 we filed complaints.
03:54 In the first three months, we completed the paperwork
03:56 and were approved for assistance.
04:00 For Ayaz and the people of Sawat,
04:02 the situation may improve when the reconstruction finishes
04:06 and tourists return to the area.
04:08 But in many parts of the country,
04:10 hope is diminishing fast.
04:15 When I came back from the fields in the evening,
04:17 I had a lot, but in the darkness of the night,
04:19 I lost everything.
04:20 The floods took it all.
04:22 Today, 48-year-old Azam Khan is taking us to the place
04:25 that he once called home.
04:28 His inheritance and result of 12 years of hard labor
04:31 in Saudi Arabia are now just stones and dust.
04:36 This was the passage that led to our house.
04:38 It was about 15 feet long.
04:40 The rubble that you see here, those are the remains
04:42 of the house.
04:43 It was about 150 square meters.
04:46 Those remains are of the outside area of the house.
04:50 Khan was not the only one who lost his house.
04:52 According to the provincial government,
04:54 over 300 houses were completely damaged,
04:57 and over 3,000 were partially damaged during the floods.
05:01 It's been difficult for Khan and his family.
05:03 Unable to pay rent on time,
05:05 they have had to move several times.
05:07 [Music]
05:24 This is where we're living now.
05:26 This is what we call the main door.
05:29 Come inside and see.
05:31 This whole place was filled with garbage.
05:34 We cleaned it up and filled it with mud.
05:37 It's kind of our veranda now.
05:39 [Music]
05:42 This is our kitchen and the stove.
05:46 We're poor people.
05:47 [Music]
05:53 This is the bathroom.
05:55 It doesn't have a proper sewage system,
05:58 so all the dirty water accumulates here.
06:01 The bathroom is at a lower level than the door.
06:06 That's why it's difficult for the water to find its way out.
06:09 What can we do?
06:10 We have to manage with what we have.
06:14 This is our room.
06:16 It doesn't have a door or windows.
06:18 When it rains, the entire roof leaks.
06:21 You can see the roof is still wet.
06:23 This is where we spend our days and nights.
06:26 In the winter, it gets very difficult.
06:29 [Music]
06:33 In conservative Charsadda,
06:35 women are not allowed to appear in front of strangers,
06:38 let alone a team of reporters.
06:40 But fed up with the living conditions
06:41 and perhaps out of pure desperation,
06:43 Azam's wife, Tayyiba Khan,
06:46 spoke out about what it all meant for her
06:48 as a mother of four children.
06:50 [Music]
06:56 One child has one wish, the other has a different one.
06:59 I say with that money,
07:00 I could make lentils for the whole family.
07:03 We can't afford wishes.
07:05 We have no hope left apart from God.
07:09 Charsadda's losses were not limited
07:11 to civilian infrastructure and property.
07:13 The bigger worry was the loss of 9,000 hectares
07:17 of agricultural produce.
07:19 It not only impacted the local community,
07:21 but also the revenue of the province.
07:25 Deputy Commissioner of Charsadda,
07:27 Waqasur Rehman, said that climate change
07:30 was directly responsible for the tragedy.
07:34 We're witnessing unusual weather conditions,
07:38 like heavy downpour during the monsoon season.
07:42 The whole country, including Charsadda district,
07:45 recorded losses due to that.
07:48 We face challenges on multiple fronts due to climate change.
07:56 The Deputy Commissioner said that a total of
07:58 647 million rupees were paid out as compensation.
08:03 But he admitted that many people may have missed out.
08:06 In this Charsadda village,
08:08 every person has a loss to grieve,
08:10 and almost none of them was compensated.
08:12 Some lost their houses, others their businesses.
08:16 But Azam Khan has lost something a lot more valuable,
08:19 his belief.
08:21 I've aged.
08:29 I don't have the energy to work as a laborer anymore.
08:32 My heart beats faster.
08:34 As time passes, these problems age a person,
08:37 you become weak.
08:38 I'm worried about poverty and my children.
08:44 About 1,150 kilometers to the south of Islamabad,
08:48 deep in the Arid Sindh province,
08:50 this is Manchar Lake,
08:52 one of Asia's largest freshwater lakes.
08:54 Here too, irregular weather patterns
08:56 driven by climate change have triggered displacement.
09:03 This lake is home to the Mohana or Molla tribe,
09:06 which in the local Sindhi language
09:08 translates to 'fisherman's village'.
09:10 The over 200-year-old village, on boats,
09:13 once had a lively community of over 30,000 people.
09:16 Today, there are just 45 boats left.
09:20 Most of the people have migrated.
09:25 This family has taken shelter in an abandoned school.
09:33 All the boats are gone.
09:36 Here you can see our fishing nets.
09:40 I used to have eight boats of my own.
09:50 Several generations of the Mohana tribe lived on boats,
09:53 so this is a new life for them.
09:55 They have not been formally educated
09:57 and do not possess the skills or understanding
10:00 for life on land.
10:01 Kari Amai is weary of the future while recalling her past.
10:08 We used to eat here, drink here and live here,
10:10 everything on the boat.
10:12 I got married on a boat as well.
10:14 My children were born here,
10:16 they got married here,
10:17 and then they had their children here.
10:20 All we knew was everything that could be done on the water,
10:24 fishing and repairing boats.
10:28 We got our food from the river.
10:31 My mother used to say,
10:32 the best food is what you grow in your own backyard.
10:36 We did that.
10:38 Everything was just fine.
10:44 Once abandoned fish stocks have gradually shrunk
10:47 due to industrial waste water,
10:49 declining water levels due to low rainfall
10:51 and unusual weather conditions.
10:56 Mashukh Birhamani has been working with an NGO
10:59 to preserve Manchar Lake.
11:01 He knows exactly what's been going on.
11:06 We believe that due to climate change,
11:07 there are very few fish left here now.
11:11 Earlier, there used to be over 40 different types
11:13 of freshwater fish in Manchar Lake.
11:16 This place also routinely saw birds migrating from Siberia.
11:21 People of the Mohana tribe loved nature.
11:25 But look at them now, displaced and disoriented.
11:29 We think Manchar Lake is dying.
11:31 We need to save the lake.
11:34 When life returns to the lake,
11:36 joy will come back to the lives of the Mohana.
11:41 Shari Rahman, Pakistan's former federal minister
11:44 for climate change, has been sounding the alarm bells
11:47 at international forums.
11:49 What goes on in Pakistan won't stay in Pakistan.
11:51 We don't wish for it to be that way.
11:55 But the dystopia has already come to our doorsteps.
12:00 Pakistan is facing multiple challenges at the moment.
12:03 A deteriorating security situation,
12:05 a deep financial crisis and political instability.
12:08 Climate change does not appear to be a priority
12:12 for its government, at least for now.
12:14 Meanwhile, the most vulnerable continue to pay the price.
12:19 (birds chirping)
12:22 (water flowing)
12:27 [BLANK_AUDIO]