In floods' defense - opinion

Noreen Haider writes for the Friday Times that riverine floods are actually an amazing gift of nature. She writes: The people from ancient times knew and understood that and they loved and worshiped the rivers as gods and goddesses. From ancient times, poetry, music, dance and folk tales all have been created and flourished on and along the rivers and the floods were awaited as an esteemed guest from afar. But how did this notion change? How the generous floods became a ‘disaster’ and how come the floods are now being referred to as a ‘wrath of God’?

The answer is present in the disrespectful way humans have been treating nature and in recent times some of the mega disasters that we have seen in the world, including those caused by the massive floods, is nature striking back.

She says that in order to mitigate the risk, the government must make sure that prior to the floods, the dams and barrages are fully functional and repaired, the staff of the barrages and dams must be fully alert, equipped and vigilant of the flow patterns, volume and the expected times of the arrival of the high volume of floods, the breaching sections fully prepared and ready, the inundation levels fully marked, the people in the area alerted and evacuated, the rivers fully respected and the blockages fully removed from the total path of the rivers. All the staff at various barrages and rivers should be in complete coordination with each other.