How to control floods
 By Jamila M Ismail Manjothi

Floods are now become common in Pakistan.

Since 2010, every year we read about floods in one river or another.

Floods are mainly due to heavy rainfalls, for they causes the rivers to overflow, inundate the surrounding areas and cause great damage.

Roads were submerged, houses were toppled down, bridges swept away and many people died in that flood.

Now every year people are facing the same difficulties; they lose their houses, their crops, their belongings, their preserved food items, their animals and livestock etc.

They have nothing to eat and no roof for shelter; therefore they suffer and die every year and these circumstances are most pitiable.

Every calamity has its end. So the floods do end but leave the people homeless.

Due to flood diseases spread and people die in large numbers. The flood takes only few hours to destroy but it takes years to restore flooded area to back to its normal life.

This year Heavy monsoon rains and floods across Pakistan during the first week of September 2014 killed at least 193 people.

To give compensation to flood victims is not the solution; we have to get rid of this issue.

Iwas going through some solutions regarding how to overcome the floods and such other disasters emanating from these floods.

The best solution of this problem is plantation.

Plantation is actually man made forest; some trees like Eucalyptus and Mangroves are very helpful, they naturally protect us from such floods, tidal waves and Tsunamis.

We can plant them near rivers, canals and dams.Actually Eucalyptus has a lot of properties; it is a fast growing tree and a kind of natural insecticide.

it is also called a thirsty tree, its roots spread deep underground and dry up all the water so it is also used to drain swamps and marshes; and the mangroves forest also does the same.

By planting such trees we can get some control over floods.

Dams are also helpful, we can store excessive water in them so we need to build more dams. There are many ways to resolve this issue.

So a strong recovery and reconstruction strategy should be followed by intensified work led by the government to ensure that Pakistanis are better prepared for future disasters.

National Disaster Management Authority should take safety measures to overcome such issues.

October, 2014

Source:  Pakistan Observer