MORTALITY RATE IN FLOODS

In natural disasters millions lives are lost and the

remaining ones spread their lives in misery. They lost
their family, their houses, their foods and everything. In
Pakistan, there is a history of devastating floods.
Following are the lists of floods along with their terrible
devastation.

LIST OF FLOODS

 From 1950 to 1993 10000 peoples lost their lives

and more than 1million homes were destroyed and
millions were injured.
 In 2003, Sindh province was badly affected when
above normal monsoon rainfall caused flooding in the
province; urban flooding also hit Karachi where two
days of rainfall of 284.5 millimetres (11.20 in) created
havoc in the city, while Thatta district was the worst
hit where 404 millimeters (15.9 in) rainfall caused
flash floods in the district. At least 484 people died
and some 4,476 villages in the province were
affected.
 In 2007 Khyber Phaktunkhwa, Sindh and
coastal Baluchistan were badly affected due to
monsoon rainfall. Sindh and coastal Baluchistan were
affected by Cyclone Yemeni in June and then
torrential rains in July and August, while Khyber-
Pakhtunkhwa was affected by melting glaciers and
heavy rainfall in July and August. At least 130 people
died and 2,000 were displaced in Khyber-
Pakhtunkhwa in July and 22 people died in August,
 while 815 people died in Baluchistan and Sindh due
to flash floods.

 In 2010, almost all of Pakistan was affected

when massive flooding caused by record breaking
rains hit Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. The
number of individuals affected by the flooding
exceeds the combined total of individuals affected by
the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir
earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. At least
2,000 people died in this flood and almost 20 million
people were affected by it.
 In September 2011, at least 361 people were killed;
some 5.3 million people and 1.2 million homes
affected as well 1.7 million acres of arable land
inundated when massive floods swept across the
province of Sindh a result of monsoon rains.
 The 2011 Sindh floods began during
the Pakistani monsoon season in mid-August 2011,
resulting from heavy monsoon rains in Sindh,
eastern Baluchistan, and southern Punjab. The
floods caused considerable damage; an estimated
434 civilians were killed, with 5.3 million people
and 1,524,773 homes affected. Sindh is a fertile
region and often called the "breadbasket" of the
country; the damage and toll of the floods on the
local agrarian economy was extensive. At least
1.7 million acres of arable land was inundated as a
result of the flooding. The flooding followed the
previous year's historic 2010 Pakistan floods, which
devastated the entire country. Unprecedented
torrential monsoon rains caused severe flooding in
16 districts of Sindh province.
 In September 2012, more than 100 people died,
and thousands of homes destroyed, with thousands of
acres of arable land affected when intense rainfall
battered Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Southern Punjab and
Upper Sindh.

 In August 2013, more than 80 people died.

CAUSES OF FLOODS

In the month of July Pakistan received below normal

monsoon rains; however in August and September the
country received above normal monsoon rains. A strong
weather pattern entered the areas of Sindh from
the Indian states of Rajasthan and Gujarat in August
and gained strength with the passage of time and
caused heavy downpours. The four weeks of continuous
rain have created an unprecedented flood situation in
Sindh.
The District Badin in Sindh province received record
breaking rainfall of 615.3 millimeters (24.22 in) during
the monsoon spell breaking earlier recorded 121
millimeters (4.8 in) in Badin in 1936. The area of Mithi
also received record rainfall of 1,290 millimeters (51 in)
during the spell, where maximum rainfall was recorded
114 millimeters (4.5 in) in Mithi in 2004. The
heavy cloudburst during last 48–72 hours displaced
many people besides destroying crops in the area. The
floods had caused the deaths of at least 1,540 people,
while 2,088 people had received injuries, 557,226
houses had been destroyed, and over 6 million people
had been displaced. One month later, the tally had risen
to 1,781 deaths, 2,966 people with injuries, and more
than 1.89 million homes destroyed.
The United Nations estimated that 800,000 people were
cut off by floods in Pakistan and were only reachable by
air. It also stated that at least 40 more helicopters are
needed to ferry lifesaving aid to increasingly desperate
people. Many of those cut off are in the mountainous
northwest, where roads and bridges have been swept
away.
The UN Population Fund estimates that nearly 500,000
women affected by the floods are pregnant, and that
1,700 women will go into labor each day. More than 250
of them will experience complications requiring medical
care. Most flood victims do not have access to proper
health services including skilled delivery assistance.

According to one of WHO report the estimated deaths

from 1950 to 2013 in floods reached to 3 to 5 million
approximately.

Measures/Remedies
To better protect against floods, buildings can add
structural measures such as humps and flood barriers
to protect their basement levels from floodwaters. They
can also link the water-level sensors in the basement
car parks to their alarm systems in order to warn their
users of flooding.
Apart from storing belongings on high levels, home-
owners in the low-lying areas can look in to having floor
boards or sand bags on standby.
Methods of control
1.TEMPORARY PERIMETER BARRIERS
It contains 2 parallel tubes within a third outer tube.
When filled, this structure formed a non-rolling wall of
water that can control 75% of its height in external
water depth, with dry ground behind it. Instead of
trucking in sandbag material for a flood, stacking it, and
then trucking it out to a hazmat disposal site, flood
control can be accomplished by using the onsite water.
2.DAMS
Many dams and their associated reservoirs are designed
completely or partially to aid in flood protection and
control. Many large dams have flood-control
reservations in which the level of a reservoir must be
kept below a certain elevation before the onset of the
rainy/summer melt season so as to allow a certain
amount of space in which floodwaters can fill. The
term dry dam refers to a dam that serves purely for
flood control without any conservation storage
(e.g. Mount Morris Dam, Seven Oaks Dam).
3.SELF-CLOSING FLOOD BARRIER
The self-closing flood barrier (SCFB) is a flood defense
system to protect people and property from inland
waterway floods caused by heavy rainfall, gales or rapid
melting snow. The SCFB can be built to protect
residential properties and whole communities, as well
as industrial or other strategic areas. The barrier
system is constantly ready to deploy in a flood
situation, it can be installed in any length and uses the
rising flood water to deploy. Barrier systems have
already been built and installed in Belgium, Italy,
Ireland, the Netherlands, Thailand, United Kingdom,
Vietnam, Australia, Russia and the United States.
4.RIVER DEFENCES
In many countries, rivers are prone to floods and are
often carefully managed. Defenses such as
levees, bunds, reservoirs, and weirs are used to prevent
rivers from bursting their banks. When these defenses
fail, emergency measures such as sandbags or portable
inflatable tubes are used.
5.COASTAL DEFENCES
Coastal flooding has been addressed in Europe and the
Americas with coastal defenses, such as sea
walls, beach nourishment, and barrier.
Tide gates are used in conjunction with dykes and
culverts. They can be placed at the mouth of streams or
small rivers, where an estuary begins or where tributary
streams, or drainage ditches connect to sloughs. Tide
gates close during incoming tides to prevent tidal
waters from moving upland, and open during outgoing
tides to allow waters to drain out via the culvert and
into the estuary side of the dike. The opening and
closing of the gates is driven by a difference in water
level on either side of the gate.
6.Providing adequate drainage ahead of new
developments.

7.Implementing flood protection measures.

8.Continual drainage improvement in flood

prone areas.