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A MASSIVE flood peak of one million cusecs of water entered Pakistan via the Khanki headworks on the Chenab river at the time this piece was being written.
Coupled with two other flood peaks in the Ravi and Sutlej rivers, both totalling half a million cusecs each, this peak now represents a rare meteorological event the likes of which we have seen only a few times in our history.
I counted up all the times the Indus river system — the main stem as well as the five eastern rivers — has seen a 1m cusec flood peak in recorded history. I found nine other instances since 1959 when the Indus river system saw a flood peak of around 1m cusecs or larger. Three of those instances were in the summer of 1959, when rains ravaged Jammu for months on end and the water coursed through the western rivers with relentless ferocity.
Over the next couple of days, this flood peak will converge at Punjnad in southern Punjab, from where it will then enter the main stem of the Indus river. This is the critical moment to watch out for. In 2022, Punjnad flooded under a flood peak of 200,000 cusecs, which was well below its stated capacity but nevertheless caused at least one embankment to collapse. Before that, in 2014, another flood peak of 415,000 cusecs caused an even larger flood. Now we wait to see what will happen when three flood peaks in three rivers totalling 1.5m cusecs converge on the same point.
After Punjnad, the waters will pass through the Guddu and then Sukkur barrages. Both of these structures are designed to handle 1.2m and 1.5m cusecs at a maximum, although given their age it would be a good idea if this limit were not to be tested.
The last time they saw a flood peak of such magnitude was in 2010, when just over 1.1m cusecs passed through them. Those were catastrophic floods, the worst Pakistan had probably ever seen, and the flood peak took many days to pass, rising and falling for more than a week. The current flood peak is comparable in size, but will likely pass in much less time than the one in 2010 so its risks are probably much lower.
Rather than heckling and abusing each other, the ruling political parties need to realise that they are all facing a common enemy: climate change.
Nevertheless, the stretch of territory lying between Punjnad and Sukkur Barrage is now at high risk of flooding.
Now we will see whether the provincial governments of Punjab and Sindh learned any lessons from the previous episodes of flooding, the most recent one being in 2022, and if they’ve done any work to strengthen the embankments along the river and introduced effective early warning systems to move vulnerable populations out of danger. If southern Punjab and northern Sindh once again resemble a catastrophe, the provincial governments should be made to answer for their failure to anticipate this event and upgrade the infrastructure accordingly.
In 2022, a number of embankments in Sindh around Manchhar Lake, Dadu and down to Thatta could not handle the pressure of the water flowing through the river. Have these been upgraded? We will soon find out.
In Punjab, in 2014, they had to breach almost 193 embankments in order to drain enough water out of the Chenab river to protect the city of Multan. That flood peak was smaller than the one coursing through the Chenab today. Soon we will find out whether the Punjab government has learned any lessons and strengthened its water infrastructure to withstand water flows of design capacity.
Technically, none of these breaches should have been necessary. Given the design capacities of the barrages, the associated infrastructure should have been able to handle flood peaks of the magnitude that flowed through the rivers in those years. Now we’ll find out whether that failure has been addressed or not.
This is the million cusec problem we are all facing now. Such flood events, which have thus far been rare, are becoming more frequent now. Since the super floods of 2010, there have been seven severe flooding events in Pakistan, which have resulted in large-scale displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, with millions impacted, thousands of acres of agricultural land destroyed and hundreds dead in their wake.
Following such flooding events comes a lasting impact measured in heightened food insecurity among the displaced population, higher rates of child malnutrition among them, greater stunting and greater vulnerability to disease. The story does not end once the floodwaters pass. In fact, for many, the story only begins at that point.
The worst, cheapest and most mindless reaction to these floods is to turn them into an opportunity to heckle, mock and abuse the political leadership of the ruling party in these provinces. For many people, this is the only mode of engagement possible in politics. What is needed is an environment of cooperation between the three main parties that control the three most populous provinces in the country. Each of them has seen a climate-related catastrophe this summer. Two of them are now seeing a second round as this flood surge makes its way down the Indus river system.
Rather than heckling and abusing each other, they need to realise that they are all facing a common enemy: climate change. They need to appoint serious individuals from among their midst to first tally up the nature of this threat in their particular province, then coordinate with their counterparts in the other provinces, and help draw up an action plan of what all is required to meet this challenge.
Much of what will be required will be actions under their control. Some of it will come under the federal government, such as upgrading weather forecasting to enable greater lead times to prepare before catastrophe strikes. But the old reflex to simply hurl abuse at each other must be resisted. If they cannot work together, at least don’t sink together.
The writer is a business and economy journalist.
Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2025