７３８：インダス河の洪水危機ニュース記事

パキスタンのインダス河で発生した未曽有のモンスーン洪水については被害の様子はBBCなどで伝わってきているが、科学的或いは治水、防災の観点からの情報がなかったが、やっとまともなニュース記事がひとつ入ってきた。

気象・水文・水理、河川防災の専門家でもあるので、下記の記事は興味深い。パキスタンは行ったことがないので想像がつかないが一応の理解が得られる。何年確率の洪水であったのかはまだ調査中なのだろう。100年以上の規模だと予測は難しい。パキスタンでは今年のモンスーンの雨量は「平年並み」と予測されていたらしい。

A case of forgotten experience

The floods which devastated the entire stretch of country from Skardu to Kotri have diverted attention from the looming disaster of the Hunza landslide dam. It may burst now when the Indus River is in peak flood.

Whereas most natural disasters are unpredictable, floods are commonly forecast several days, if not weeks, in advance of their impact. It is primarily a country's preparedness that determines the scale of human and economic losses.

A case in point is the 2008 Midwestern US floods. Rated highest in its intensity (a 500 years' return period), the damage and inundation was much smaller than that of the great floods of 1993, 1951 and 1844. This restriction of casualties and damage could only be achieved through consistent improvements in flood management, through both structural and non-structural measures.

Pakistan was among the few countries in the world to have some important emergency-related institution in place as early as the 1950s. River-flood mitigation and preparedness has been a focus in Pakistan for decades. As for floods, since the 1970s, over 5,600 kilometres of embankments had been built on riverbanks. Also built were spurs, dikes, gabion walls, flood walls, dispersion and diversion structures, delayed-action dams, bypass structures and other devices for channelling of floodwaters. At the same time, non-structural measures involving robust flood forecasting, warning and communication were introduced.

Yet, when the earthquake struck on Oct 8, 2005, disaster-management was in a dismal state. Pakistan's response in the first two days of the disaster was appalling. Thousands of people were buried alive and many others died waiting for help. However, Pakistan excelled in its relief response to the earthquake. Constituted within two days of the disaster, the Federal Relief Commission played an effective role as a controlling and coordinating authority. The result was that road communication was restored in the record time of two weeks and thousands were evacuated and provided shelters, food and medical facilities. Subsequently, the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) stepped in to replace the relief commission, with the reconstruction and rehabilitation effort continuing nearly five years later.

The earthquake prompted the creation of Pakistan's first comprehensive disaster-management plan. On Dec 23, 2006, President Musharraf promulgated the National Disaster Management Ordinance. This paved the way for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which is since responsible for implementation, coordination and monitoring of disaster management. Pakistan was therefore expected to perform better in its disaster response in the floods.

Pakistan gained a wealth of experience in its effective response to the 2005 earthquake, recovery and rehabilitation stages concerning. Thousands of persons involved in these efforts were thoroughly drilled in all aspects of disaster management. Pakistan developed a potential not only for effective handling of future natural disasters at home but also for advice and training to countries in the developing world.

Despite this, there were glaring shortcomings in our response to the floods. There is no denying that the scale of the disaster exceeded all expectations. The floods, rated at a 100-years return period, are beyond precedence in living memory. Unlike the 2005 earthquake when a stretch of 100-150 kilometres was devastated, the disaster hit a stretch of more than 1,400 kilometres.

These shortcomings should urgently be addressed. Firstly, the forecast for the 2010 monsoons in Pakistan failed to draw attention to some unusual flood conditions in the country. According to the Met Office communication of June 21, the 2010 monsoon spell was rated as "normal." Possibilities of heavy rains and flash and urban floods were mentioned, but no clue was given as to the scale of the flooding. (Once the floods began, however, flood forecasts along the length of the Indus and its tributaries improved, and that resulted in warnings for downstream areas several days in advance.)

Heavy rains started lashing the Sulaiman Ranges on July 21. By July 27, several districts of Balochistan, southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southern Punjab were flooded. The floods in the upper parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa peaked by July 29-30, with the affected districts including Swat, Dir, Nowshera, Peshawar and Charsada. Then the Indus floods followed, which are still inundating large parts of Punjab and Sindh.

By the first week of August, the response to the disaster was itself in complete disaster. There were hardly any rescue efforts, and when they started by Aug 1, they were so chaotic and disordered that they had little impact. In effect, the rescue was left to the affected communities themselves. This was particularly the case in Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

It was only when the floods started moving downstream from Attock that institutions like the army, air force and the navy started effective rescue and evacuation operations, with foreign countries joining in, especially the United States.

In the case of the 2005 earthquake, the president had immediately put in place a unified command-and-control system through a Federal Relief Commission headed by a serving army general, which had full powers and authority. This commission not only launched a rescue and evacuation operation, it effectively coordinated the enormous response from civil society, NGOs and international donors. The result was a success story acknowledged at home and abroad.

But no such institution was constituted this time. The NDMA--which draws its strength from disaster management authorities (DMAs) at the provincial, district and grassroots levels of union councils and villages--did not have the capacity to handle a disaster on this scale. (By October 2008, with the exception of Balochistan, no province had been able to set up DMAs even at provincial level, let alone the grassroots.)

Besides, the NDMA has not been vested with control and authority. The result is that there is no clear command-and-control structure in the country necessary for disaster response on this scale. In the initial period of the flood disaster, it was not clear who is responsible for what. The effort is there, especially on the part of the armed forces, and to some extent the provincial governments, but their actions are not coordinated. Therefore, some parts of the effected population received assistance while others are still stranded, suffering from exposure, disease and starvation.

Granted, that disaster management should essentially be under the control of a civilian government, an arrangement strongly favoured and advocated by international donors and relief agencies. But since civilian governance in Pakistan is still in its infancy, federal and provincial government institutions are ineffective. The NDMA has been dealing with low- to medium-level disaster in the past four years, but it is unfair to expect it to effectively handle the scale of disaster associated with the present floods.

Pakistan urgently needs to rescue, evacuate and feed millions of stranded people faced with starvation and epidemics. Immediate constitution of a federal relief commission, effectively controlled by the army, is therefore essential for coping with the scale of calamity posed by these floods. This commission should have a clear mandate with its focus on operations. The proposed commission would focus on emergency operations, and should not be confused with the one under consideration at the federal level. Later, it can be constituted will its focus on medium- to long-terms relief and rehabilitation, a stage yet to come.

First priority should be rescue, evacuation and short-term relief (shelter, food, medicine). While rescue work goes on, the commission should be responsible for restoration of basic services such as bridges and roads (army engineers are capable of assembling temporary bridges in a matter of days and weeks, something which normally takes years) and restoration of telephone links and electricity supply.

The constitution of such a commission will in no way jeopardise the functioning of the NDMA. Rather, the NDMA will thereby receive ground operational support, which is otherwise missing. Acting jointly with the Federal Relief Commission (FRC), the NDMA will be more effective in coordination at federal, provincial, district and community level, as well as streamlining foreign aid to be timely distributed amongst the victims through the FRC.

Most importantly, Pakistan should ensure the strengthening of the present institutions, like the NDMA. Instead of being ignored or abandoned the institutions should be provided with an effective support base at the grassroots level and strong sponsorship from top-level authorities.

All this is going to be critical if our worst fears about the Hunza landslide dam come true.

copyrights Thenews 17.8.2010

at Monday, August 16, 2010