Greetings, caring viewers, to another edition of Planet Earth: Our Loving Home.
In
2009 hydrological disasters were the most frequent type of natural
disaster comprising over 53% of all such events globally. Of the 180
reported hydrological disasters worldwide, 149 were floods and 31 were
wet mass movements like landslides, with over 57.3 million
victims.Compared to 2008, the number of persons affected increased by
27.4%. The continent with the largest occurrence of floods in 2009 was
Asia .
Today we focus on the disastrous floods that occurred in
the South Asian nation of Pakistan during July and August 2010. Pakistan
has a varied geography that includes plains, deserts, forests, hills
and plateaus.
The country can be roughly divided into three main
parts – the northern uplands, the Balochistan Plateau and the Indus
River plain. The majority of the nation’s population of 174 million
lives along the Indus River.
In recent years Pakistan has
experienced an increasing number of natural disasters including
earthquakes, floods and droughts. In October 2005, a 7.6 magnitude
arthquake caused over 70,000 deaths and damaged approximately 600,000
homes. In addition, rapid melting of the Himalayan and Hindu Kush
mountain
glaciers, the world’s third largest frozen fresh water reserve that
feeds 10 important river systems in Asia, is seriously threatening the
country’s long-term primary water supply.
Beginning in July 2010
the worst flooding in 80 years hit Pakistan, causing unprecedented
damage in the nation. Thus far, more than 20-million people have been
affected, with nearly 2,000 deaths, almost 3,000 injured and over
1.9-million homes damaged or destroyed in the disaster. Three-quarters
of the affected population live in the Sindh and Punjab provinces.
According
to the website of the National Disaster Management Authority, which is a
part of the Pakistani government: 『The magnitude [of the flooding] is
so huge both in scale and destruction that it is more than twice than
the Pakistan Earthquake 2005, Cyclone Katrina 2005, Indian Ocean Tsunami
2004, Cyclone Nargis 2008 and Haiti Earthquake 2010, all put together
in terms of geographical space and population affected.』