Khawaja Zaheer Ahmed - PDMA

personnel deployed for the purpose rushed with dedication whatever, from
wherever and in whatever mode was possible under those conditions. At the
initial stages, saving lives of the marooned, provision of essential food, safe
drinking water were the obvious priorities; utensils and other voluntary services
were trucked and airlifted as Medical professionals including the internees joined.
Most people had no idea that weather takes no note of their belief systems.
Disaster not only evoked and channelized public sympathy, at home & abroad,
some major channels actively conducted awareness programs for private charity,
collected and disbursed relief assistance, at times by enlisting feme-fatale
celebrities of all hue and shade. Besides saving many precious lives, these
agencies had done what was humanly possible, in view of the organizational &
logistic constraints. That was, however, not so with respect to many in the
Provincial Irrigation hierarchies.
72. Only WAPDA had had the opportunity to review its SOPs in the wake of
Ataabad Lake syndrome to alert its senior professional team to explore and
examine all options to meet any contingency, in the context of threats to Tarbela
and downstream Chashma, should the Attabad Lake burst by any chance. Like
NDMA, the KP and the Punjab also acted with utmost dedication in conjunction
with armed forces to minimize impact of the disaster, at times beyond the call of
duty. These efforts need institutional back up.
73. As public perceptions, at home and abroad, compounded, including those
from within the coalition partners, the Provincial Governments of Sindh and the
Punjab constituted Judicial Commissions to probe into alleged acts of
malfeasance or nonfeasance by the respective administrations. For obvious
reasons, their ToRs were focussed to the specific complaints, rather than
functionally and spatially integrated dimensions commensurate with scale of the
national catastrophe, or redressal of publicly voiced complaints, in their entirety.
This Commission benefitted from the evidentiary material collected by the two
Commissions with due regard to Ordinance II of 1969.
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