MANY monsoons back, in a small remote village there was an old widow who had tied a small cloth pouch to the crook of her walking stick. Inside the pouch were her house keys, a pair of reading glasses, and a tiny whistle. “In an earthquake, the ground dances and everything hides from you,” she would say.

With the pouch on her stick, she knew she could stumble outside, unlock a gate, or call for help. Her mud house was built well away from the path of the frequently overflowing stream. Her monsoon preparedness included placing the most precious items — her pension book, ID card and a handful of old black-and-white photos inside a battered steel trunk that rested on bricks many feet above the ground. She survived numerous storms and earthquakes — for she knew that prevention was better than cure.

Pakistan ignored the ‘preventive’ wisdom of this one-person disaster management authority. Instead, it created a gigantic organisation with 250 employees, an annual running cost of Rs362 million, and an additional Rs8 billion earmarked for procurement of equipment. Despite all this, we lost over 670 lives, hundreds of cattle, thousands of homes and millions in properties in the recent monsoon........

© Dawn