The fact that more than 80 innocent lives were lost during just the first round of the monsoon rains that pounded the country last week demonstrates how incompetent and unprepared the authorities truly are to handle the issue. The fact that the stakeholders mistakenly believe that cleaning up nullahs is the sole workable answer to an issue with a truly global scope also suggests that they are not yet prepared to comprehend the full breadth and magnitude of climate change. After the monsoon season, this enthusiasm too gradually fades away, and the following year, we are starting over. The fact that monsoon rains came sooner than anticipated is not an explanation for deaths, which are the result of issues that continue because important organizations were careless and managed poorly. The amount of rain that fell during the typical monsoon last week increased by an astounding 87 percent, with Balochistan and Sindh receiving 274 and 261 percent more rain, respectively. In light of this extraordinary rainfall, existing mitigation and rescue strategies are ineffective. The tragedy has brought to light the urgent necessity to switch from a reactionary to a preventative approach. This means that in advance, predictions of upcoming climate events must be made and addressed methodically. But only if we get past the basic issues that keep coming up can we implement such resilient measures. Open manholes, damaged roadways, blocked nullahs, and live wires have resulted in avoidable deaths during the rainy season. The first and foremost priority should be to avoid deaths and then to save lives. To lessen the effects of the monsoon, development must occur during the rest of the year. To do this, municipal corporations must make sure that nullahs are redesigned to withstand the capacity of rainwater while provincial construction regulatory bodies must be tasked with identifying deficient infrastructure. Once we get through this, scientists, urban planners, managers, environmentalists, and all other interested parties must work together to create new mitigation strategies that take into account recent findings on monsoon rains under the general heading of climate change.
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