Floods are not new to Pakistan. According to the Pakistan media, there have been as many as 22 floods since its creation - in 1950, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1995, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, and now in 2014. Each flood has caused massive loss of life, property, crops and infrastructure.
What is new about the 2014 floods, however, is the tirade launched by that international terrorist Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Toiba supremo, that the floods have been caused by India's 'water terrorism' (releasing water without warning in the cross-border rivers), a new addition no doubt in the terrorism lexicon.
His refrain has been dutifully picked up by some Pakistan television channels and anchors, as also sections of the print media. So much so, that now this has become an article of faith in parts of Pakistan.
Saeed's allegation can be dismissed out of hand as absurd given the fact, that there were hardly any such allegations that the previous 21 floods were caused by India's so-called 'water terrorism'. So why would the 2014 floods be caused by India?
But let us look at other facts too.
The floods in Pakistan have been largely caused by the Chenab and to a lesser extent by the Jhelum. Under the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, India cannot control the water flows of the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab rivers which have been allocated to Pakistan. On these rivers, India is building several run-of-the-rivers hydro projects that do not control the water flow when they enter Pakistan.
Thus, whenever there is very heavy rain in the catchment areas of these rivers, like in the first week of September 2014, the waters will naturally flow into Pakistan. There is nothing India can do to prevent this.
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The central point which Hafiz Saeed and his ilk have deliberately ignored is that Srinagar has been devastated by the flood waters of the Jhelum. But, it is not the Jhelum that has caused massive devastation in Pakistan, but the Chenab. Why?
The answer is that on the Jhelum, Pakistan has built the Mangla Dam, the height of which was recently raised. As a result, an approximately three million acre foot of additional water was stored, which prevented the flood in the Jhelum from causing the kind of havoc it did in Jammu and Kashmir.
On the Chenab, however, Pakistan has not been able to build any storage capacity since its creation to store excess water. Hence, the devastation along the Chenab in parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and more so in Pakistan and that too in Pakistani Punjab, the heart of the country.
Hafiz Saeed has also conveniently omitted to mention that on the Indian rivers - the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas - there are several dams in India that store excess water. Hence, there has been no flooding in the command areas of these rivers. Floods caused by the Ravi in Pakistan have not been due to release of excess water by India, but due to excess rains in Pakistan.
Taking the wind out of the sails of Hafiz Saeed's allegation have been the statements of the Water and Power Minister Kh Asif on some TV programmes and of experts dealing with the issue.
Mirza Asif Beg, Commissioner of Pakistan's Commission of Indus Water (PCIW), for example, has been quoted in the Pakistani media as having stated that India kept on informing Pakistan about the flood status on time.
He confirmed that as per the bilateral agreement on exchange of flood information, India gave precise information on the water flow and the flood situation, even on an hourly basis.
Asif Beg also underlined that the impression in Pakistan that India had suddenly released water in the Chenab and Jhelum rivers was baseless propaganda, since the Chenab is Pakistan's river and India has not built dams to store water. Clearly, therefore, if there are no storage dams, how could India suddenly release water?
Another senior official from the Flood Forecasting Division was also quoted in the Pakistani media confirming that India had informed the Pakistani authorities on time about the unprecedented rains that turned into huge floods.
The Pakistan Met Office had also warned the government about the expected huge rains in the catchment areas that might cause floods.
Moreover, Pakistani Punjab received over 400 mm rains in early September that acted as a multiplier with the feeder tributaries of the Chenab coming into play, causing further damage.
The floods in Pakistan have been devastating. According to one estimate, the death toll in the current floods is around 300 with over 25 lakh people affected. Damage is estimated to over 45,000 houses and to crops (rice, sugarcane and cotton) spread over 1.5 lakh acres. These are of course preliminary figures.
The lesson that Pakistan needs to learn from this terrible disaster is that it urgently needs additional storage capacity to absorb excessive rainfall.
One option could be to ask India to build storage capacity on the Chenab in India that can be used to prevent Pakistan from getting inundated instead of objecting to India making run-of-the river projects which it is entitled to do anyway under the Indus Water Treaty. Bilateral cooperation against the backdrop of such periodic destruction is perhaps the only way forward.
That, however, would require a level of trust that is unlikely to develop so long as terrorists like Hafiz Saeed set the bilateral agenda and spew venom on India at the slightest pretext.
The views expressed in the above article are that of Mr. Salim Haq.
