Pakistan: Time to design disaster contingency plan

At the ‘Disaster Contingency Planning in Sindh: Issues and Lessons Learnt’ conference held on 29 December, it was recommended that the legal framework for Disaster Risk Management and Contingency Planning in Pakistan needed to be reviewed. Pakistan Today reports that the inclusion of the early warning mechanism at the local level was also discussed.

'Due to past experiences, the government has decided to make a four-member committee including army engineer, irrigation department member, flood commissioner and NDMA officer, who would be authorised to make breaches in canals’ embankments and other water infrastructures in case of floods, as breaches made on political basis have resulted in heavy losses to local communities,' said National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Chairman, Dr Zafar Iqbal Qadir.