Pakistan floods second worst this decade – An early warning system to predict floods would help
JOHANNESBURG, 12 August 2010 (IRIN): The floods in Pakistan, which have killed at least 1.200 people so far, are already the world’s second worst in the decade from 2001 to August 2010, according to the Belgium-based Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).
– The numbers of people killed are very high for a natural event (like a flood), which is among the easier disasters to predict and plan for, said CRED director Debarati Guha-Sapir.
CRED looks at how disasters affect human health and collaborates with World Health Organization (WHO).
The world’s worst floods in terms of fatalities occurred in 2004 in Haiti, a Caribbean island country prone to natural hazards, where two weeks of heavy rains swelled rivers in the southeast along the border with the Dominican Republic, generating floods that killed more than 2.500 people.
Monsoon rains in India in 2005 caused 1.200 flood deaths, placing this disaster in second place beside the current floods in Pakistan.
The monsoon rains in the region usually continue into September and aid workers fear the number of lives lost to floodwater could rise. One-third of Pakistan – an area the size of England – is under water.
Seven of the 11 worst floods in CRED’s list for the decade 2000-2009 have taken place in India.
Guha-Sapir said countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would feature high on a list with numbers of people affected by floods because of the high concentration of poor rural people living along river banks.
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