On the eve of August 22, 2024, the elders of the Fazal Kapri village in Sindh's Mirpurkhas district forecasted an unseasonal spell of rain. When the rains began at 8pm later that evening, they did not stop for four days, leaving the village and its surrounding areas inundated. Over five weeks later, the water had yet to be drained. The district and provincial governments were nowhere to be seen, and the disaster management authorities gave up, grossly under-equipped, to tackle the situation. Village residents received nothing but death and despair and were left to save themselves.
"We are always affected," laments Khanzadi Murtaza Kapri, a human rights activist who lives in the Fazal Kapri village.
The 25-year-old activist, who has been raising awareness about the disaster which struck her village and surrounding areas on her social media platforms, says major floods have become increasingly frequent in recent years.
The first major floods she experienced was when she was just 11 years old and still in school in 2010. The floods were among the worst the province had seen in the past 80 years, with waters rising to as high as eight feet. It damaged 3.321 million acres of land in Sindh, destroyed nearly a million houses with 1,700 people dead, submerged crops, with thousands of heads of livestock killed from either drowning, absence of clean water and food or due to the spread of diseases as the rainwater accumulated.
The situation intensified in 2022, when floods submerged large parts of the province, around 3.77 million acres of crop land was affected with 1,093 deaths, 8,422 injuries while 2.087 million houses, and 436,435 heads of livestock were affected.
They had barely recovered from that when heavy rains returned in 2024 and all but drowned them again.
"We see all the hardships, and afterwards we console ourselves and become silent after going through it all," said Khanzadi, summarising the repeated climate tragedies she and her entire village had been facing for over a decade.
Two months prior to the August rains, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) had repeatedly warned that the months-long drought-like conditions could give way to an upcoming weather event that could cause flash floods. The PMD alerted the relevant authorities about the impending rains, urging them to take emergency measures to avoid untoward situations. The warnings, it seems, fell on deaf ears.
With reports of flash floods engulfing several parts of South Asia, from Afghanistan to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan's own recent encounter with devastating floods in 2022, the provincial government and disaster management adopted no practical measures to mitigate the potential impact of such flooding in the country, leaving those most vulnerable on their own again.
As Khanzadi's village received non-stop rain for four days and the water level kept rising, concerns mounted on what impact it would create. Once the rains stopped, Khanzadi said her village and others in the area were submerged.
The heavy rains destroyed or submerged some 3,400 houses in Mirpurkhas alone. Residents either shifted to the roofs of their homes - where they were sturdy enough - or had to find the nearest highway and thoroughfare or other dry patch of land to find refuge as the stagnant water rose by five feet.
"I was informed that most people are on roads because they no longer have access to their houses," she said.
Apart from flooding their homes, the rainwater also drowned standing crops, causing immense damage to the sharecroppers - who farm on agricultural land provided by landlords in exchange for a pre-determined share of crops - who now have a share of crops pending over their heads. These farmers were forced to abandon their children by the roadside as they jumped into the water to salvage whatever crops they could. Apart from losing their crops, their livestock were also killed.
Khanzadi said that like in 2010 and 2022, life had once again ground to a halt in 2024, with people left without shelter, access to clean drinking water, food and medicines.
As the water stagnated, inundating their homes and fields, Khanzadi recalled how, in 2010, "It took a whole year for the waters to recede."
"Almost all of it (the stagnated water) was absorbed by the land due to waterlogging," she said, adding that it ruined their otherwise fertile land.
Then in 2022, the nightmare returned, followed by another visit this year.
No support
Witnessing the third iteration of the disaster, Khanzadi said the difference this time was that along with the government, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and even the public have lost interest in their tragedy. She suspected that the public at large was suffering from disaster fatigue, and just as the country had moved on from the catastrophic floods of 2022 when it became old news, they had moved on from this tragedy, deeming it not worthy of the outcry, and a routine that most can't be bothered about.
Like most problems in our country, we sadly got desensitised to climate change catastrophes as well, Khanzadi lamented, noting that just a few weeks into the tragedy, it was no longer worthy of trending on social media, no longer worth the TRPs on traditional media. But said the impacts on those suffering from the tragedy were real as they felt they had been abandoned once again.
When asked about relief, Khanzadi said the local government had blatantly informed them that they had no funds and couldn't do anything. She added that while the District Disaster Agency (DDA) had assured them they were are prepared for any eventuality, they ultimately failed to provide support since they lacked the necessary funds, adequate planning to respond to the climate tragedy.
Khanzadi said her village was fighting for its own survival like it has for years now.
When the floods struck in 2022, Khanzadi leveraged the power of social media to mobilise support for the residents of her village by starting a fundraising campaign on the social media platform Twitter (now known as 'X'). Khanzadi said the campaign resonated and people responded to her call. The funds raised allowed her to distribute ration bags and medication and arrange for medical camps in her village. This year, too, she has leveraged social media again, raising awareness and funds to support her flood-hit village.
Staring at death
While she has secured some support, its delivery to flood-hit areas has been slow.
With the flood waters stagnating, a host of water-borne diseases are engulfing the survivors. A malarial outbreak has been reported in the flood-affected parts of Mirpurkhas, which claimed many lives, including that of Khanzadi's mother, who fell victim to a vicious mosquito bite.
With no access to clean water, people were forced to drink the dirty rainwater which had accumulated around them, leading to severe cases of diarrhoea. After the 2022 flooding, an epidemic of kidney and skin diseases emerged. This year, as well, skin and kidney diseases have made a vicious comeback.
In certain cases, some women were still suffering from skin diseases which they had developed during the last floods and had yet to recover when they were affected by the recent floods.
With a severe lack of resources, people there are left with no medication, food and clean water.
The loop that the Fazal Kapri got stuck in 2010, seems to be repeating non-stop.
Human contribution to climate change
Many factors contribute to the accelerated climate change in this region. But amidst all those technicalities, it is easy to forget the human cost of natural disasters or the human contribution to creating disasters.
Khanzadi pointed to the faulty construction of the LBODs (left bank outfall drain) and the lack of practical and actionable policies by the government, and the public becoming numb to climate tragedies and the government's lack of effort in mitigating the effects of climate change.
Khanzadi's story is of someone who has almost given up on a lot but not in her own will to bring comfort to her people.