The monsoon has returned and so has the death toll. At least 64 lives have been lost in the past week alone, swept away by flash floods and torrential rains that were forecast well in advance. What should trigger a national alarm now plays out with grim regularity.
Each year, warnings are issued; each year, the state remains unprepared. The outcome is depressingly familiar: loss, displacement, and grief; borne most heavily by those already on the margins.
We have been here before. The floods of 2022 submerged a third of the country. Millions were displaced. The economic losses ran into billions.
And yet, two years later, Pakistan remains just as exposed. Promised flood defences remain incomplete. Drainage systems are either choked or absent. Early warning mechanisms still fail to reach those in greatest danger.
After 2022, action plans were drafted, budgets announced, and committees formed. But little translated into action on the ground. Coordination between federal and provincial bodies remains erratic.
Accountability is virtually nonexistent. As usual, governments trade blame while lives are lost in the space between them.
This cycle of negligence reveals a harsh truth: the most vulnerable have been quietly written out of the state’s calculus. Rural communities living in floodplains, in fragile homes of mud and tin, face the full force of disaster-without shelter, without aid, without recourse. Meanwhile, the powerful observe from higher, safer ground, untouched and unmoved.
The injustice does not end at our borders. Pakistan contributes less than 1% to global carbon emissions, yet finds itself on the frontlines of a climate crisis it did not cause.
Rich nations offer sympathy, but little by way of climate financing or structural support. Climate summits come and go; for countries like ours, the consequences do not. The next storm is inevitable. Whether we respond with preparation or once again with platitudes will determine how many more lives are lost.
