Pakistan is in a parlous state

The lessons of the heatwave are as follows: plan, protect and pre-empt disaster

People rush a heat-stroke victim to a hospital in Karachi. Shakil Adil / AP Photo

Morgues have reached capacity in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, with a record-breaking heatwave causing hundreds of deaths in Karachi, the country’s largest city and other districts. On Thursday afternoon, some reports suggested that the toll had crossed the 1,000 mark. Why is Pakistan suffering in this way?

A heatwave is a natural phenomenon, much like a cyclone, flood or drought. It’s not as if it is new to Pakistan or that the country doesn’t know about extreme weather – its location on a great land mass just north of the Tropic of Cancer means that Pakistan’s climate is characterised by extreme variations of temperature, both seasonally and daily. And yet it seems to have been caught totally unawares by the soaring temperatures and the fact that the hottest time of the year coincides with Ramadan, with all the consequences for dehydration during the 15-hour long daily fast.

It seems extraordinary that those responsible for disaster-management in Karachi failed to issue an advisory as temperatures climbed, power cuts continued as usual, the municipal water supply stubbornly remained a dribble for much of the day and people were visibly in distress. The very fact that most of the fatalities were among the poor – people who knew little about the symptoms of heatstroke or how to prevent it – is a sign of how little has been done to raise awareness about something so basic. The fact that it is the poor who have mainly been felled by the heat is another sign of how unequal life is in Pakistan – those with money can afford to sidestep the ineptitude of the state and buy services such as electricity and water from private vendors.

It has long been known that Pakistan’s public services and the power sector have been in a terrible state. Urban areas have been forced to suffer more than eight hours of load-shedding a day, while rural areas are hit by 11 hours. But the government had promised it would do better during Ramadan – and is now seen to have failed. Or worse, to have not tried at all. Prime minister Nawaz Sharif has declared a state of emergency. It is too little too late.