Khawaja Zaheer Ahmed - PDMA

CHAPTER-3
FLOOD DAMAGES: QUANTIFIED AND NON-QUANTIFIED
16. That the floods caused unprecedented losses is universally
acknowledged. An irreparable loss of over 1,600 deaths, thousands suffered
minor and major injuries including permanent disabilities; 20 million became
IDPs, largest ever in history anywhere, it will take time to heal the wounds.
Almost 4.5 million lost their jobs, mostly in the farm sector; 7 million school going
children were prevented from resuming academic activity for half the year.
Despite initial public reports of US$ 43 billion losses that included war burden,
there was a consensus amongst Federating units and International Development
Partners that Pakistan suffered a loss of Rs. 855 billions [US$ 10.056 billion]
equivalent of 5.8% GDP in 2010-11, though direct losses to Irrigation
infrastructures were limited to 2.8 % of the total. Of these losses some 50 % was
borne by Rural/ Agriculture/ Farm sector (Rs. 429 billion), followed by damage to
private housing stock (Rs 135 billion), Transport and Communication (Rs. 113
billion), Financial Sector (Rs 57 billion), Education (Rs. 27 billion), Energy (Rs. 26
billion) and Water and Sanitation (Rs. 9 billion) in addition to losses to
Governance infrastructure and other miscellaneous losses, potential loan write
offs not to speak of tax revenues, both lost or foregone for years.
17. In terms of the loci of the damages, Sindh reported most losses, followed
by KP, the Punjab and Balochistan, though the latter’s relative losses became
more pronounced as unlike other areas, the 2010-11 Rabi crop could not be
planted by farmers most directly impacted by loss of two successive crops. The
FATA, Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK also had their share of sufferings, primarily due to
rain-induced damages. Following table summarizes sectoral and spatial
dimensions of the assessed damages:
Page 76 of 211