ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik on Friday warned wealthy business tycoons of action against resorts, hotels and housing societies built on riverbeds after floods inundated the northern and eastern parts of the country.
Swollen rivers in Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, have submerged more than 1,600 villages and displaced over 1.1 million people, with about 40 deaths reported in the region since Aug. 15, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
Mass evacuations began after heavier-than-usual monsoon rains and the release of water from overflowing dams in India triggered flash floods in low-lying border areas of Pakistan.
Media footage showed water from the Ravi River entering a lavish private housing society in the eastern city of Lahore last night as police urged residents to evacuate immediately.
“This monsoon is our declaration of war. We will not stop now and will remove every obstacle from the river’s path,” Malik said while addressing a televised news conference in Karachi during his visit.
“The prime minister has said no one is stronger than the state and this year you will see it,” he continued. “Now we will see who is stronger — the state or a handful of tycoons.”
He pleaded with the country’s elite to “have some fear” while building housing colonies along riverbanks.
“These are the very places where we should have been preserving water and where rivers should have been allowed to spread and be stored,” he added.
“Every district should have designated wetland zones and protected areas.”
Malik urged people to grow mangroves, wetlands and forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the air.
He lamented that resorts, hotels and housing societies built along riverbanks by wealthy people had become a source of death for the poor.
“When the mansions and illegal complexes of the wealthy collapse, their concrete and timber turn into missiles,” he said.
“Huge boulders, flying like pebbles, come crashing down with the water hitting poor settlements and destroying everything in their way.”
Calling the settlements on riverbanks an “agent of destruction” for the poor, Malik urged the wealthy elite to reconsider their actions and stop building along riverbanks.
He also disclosed that Pakistan was employing the best technology in the world including satellites, drones and artificial intelligence to monitor and tackle floods.
“Drones are hovering over the mountains, satellites are sending images, AI is mapping every possible route water could take next year.”
Around 842 people have been killed in the monsoon season since June 26, with the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province recording the highest number of casualties.
Pakistani officials say the current spell is likely to last until at least Sept. 10 and could rival the 2022 floods, which killed more than 1,700 people and caused over $30 billion in damage.
