Review
A critical analysis of 2010 floods in Pakistan
Hashim Nisar Hashmi1, Qazi Tallat Mahmood Siddiqui1*, Abdul Razzaq Ghumman1, Mumtaz Ahmed Kamal1 and Habib ur Rehman Mughal2
1 2
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan.
Accepted 16 December, 2011
Pakistan has diverse geography with Northern alpines covered with glaciers and Southern Plains bordering the Arabian Sea. There are five big rivers flowing through the country from north to south namely the mighty Indus and its tributaries, that is, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej. There is a well marked monsoon season from July to mid September in which most of the country receives rainfall. Riverine flooding is common in the low lying areas along the rivers during monsoon season while flash flooding is also experienced in hilly and semi hilly areas. Since its creation, Pakistan has faced severe floods in 1950, 1956, 1957, 1973, 1976, 1978, 1988, 1992 and now in 2010. These floods affected the basins of the rivers in Punjab and Sindh. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Balochistan, Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), Gilgit Baltistan(G-B), Azad Jammu and Kashmir(AJK) and in some areas of Punjab, damages are caused mainly due to flash floods in secondary and tertiary rivers including hill torrents. Pakistan has suffered from the worst flood of its history in monsoon season of 2010. As per Damage Need Assessment (DNA) report of ADB /World Bank, the floods affected an area of 2 about 160,000 km (one fifth of the country), claiming about 1,985 lives, damaging around 1.5 million houses, wiping out cropped area of more than 17 million acres, displacing a
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