Summary:
In 2010, Pakistan encountered the worst monsoon floods in the history of the country and the region, affecting all seven regions of the country: Baluchistan, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP),
Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and Sindh provinces, the Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), as well as Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) State. The first spell of monsoon rains hit parts of the southern-western province of Baluchistan in the third week of July 2010, followed by a second spell of severe rains over (KP in the last week of July 2010 that continued until early August. These rains caused unprecedented flooding of major, secondary and tertiary rivers in KP, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan provinces. Within a period of one and a half months, 78 out of Pakistan’s 141 districts were affected. Termed as a ‘slow evolving tsunami’ the magnitude of the 2010 floods was considerably higher both in scale and destruction in comparison to other major disasters around the world, affecting ten times more people than the Indian ocean Tsunami of 2004 and 6 times more people than the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. 1,985 deaths and 2,946 people injured by the floods were officially recorded by the authorities. More than 20 million people, representing 12 per cent of Pakistan’s population of 170 million were affected by the floods.
Substantial destruction affected over 2.1 million hectares of cultivated land with infrastructure severely damaged. Besides severe damage to the housing sector, livestock were affected too, impacting the existing livelihood patterns of already marginalized communities. The emergency reached its peak in September when the floodwater reached the ocean while inundating one fifth of the country (160.000km2).