Reeling from devastating floods, winters deliver double punch for survivors in ‘Siberia of Balochistan’

DASHT: On a cold morning last week, Hajji Abdul Sattar, 67, passed on clay with the help of a large shovel to his younger brother, who was constructing a mud wall for their new home in the southwestern Pakistani city of Dasht. Sattar’s family is among dozens of others who have moved to the area for the next three months to avoid biting cold, after being uprooted by deadly floods in their native village this year.

The deluges, triggered by unprecedented monsoon rains, submerged a third of Pakistan and affected more than 33 million, particularly in the southern Sindh and southwestern Balochistan provinces, this August. The gushing waters destroyed two million households, millions of acres of standing crops and cost the South Asian country more than $30 billion in losses.

Sattar and others in his native Killi Hafiz Gulzar Qalandarani village stayed in tents for months after the floods washed away their homes, but decided to migrate to Dasht in the Balochistan province and rebuild their homes there after sub-zero temperatures started freezing water.

“More than 60 homes in our village were completely destroyed in the floods back in August. We managed to spend three months in tents with our children but now the cold weather conditions are unbearable and we can’t live without a roof and covered walls,” Sattar told Arab News.

“[Because of freezing temperatures in winters], Dasht is famously called the ‘Siberia of Balochistan.’ People have started constructing mud houses with their own resources as the next two months will be more hazardous for us.”

According to official estimates, the floods damaged more than 200,000 houses across 34 districts in Balochistan.

Pakistani officials have urged the world to send more aid to the South Asian country, expressing concerns for the flood-affectees as the winter nears its peak.

While the affected residents of Killi Hafiz Gulzar Qalandarani admitted the government did provide them assistance, they said it was not barely enough to rehabilitate them.

“The government came to our village after the floodwater destroyed our homes, [but] they just provided four tents and rations to some families,” said 27-year-old Abdul Aleem, who has been building a mud house for his four children in Dasht.

“They never returned to see our condition in winter.”

Aleem is himself building a 2500-feet boundary wall on his land in Dasht city.

“The laborers don’t work in Dasht during the winter season because the water-and-mud mixture freezes at dawn and dusk,” he told Arab News.

“[Therefore], I have started building the wall by myself.”

When approached, Farah Azeem Shah, a spokesperson for the Balochistan government, said authorities had expedited the rehabilitation process in flood-hit districts and it had already dispatched warm clothes for the flood victims residing in colder parts of the province.

“The government is fully aware that some flood victims have started rebuilding their homes,” Shah said.

“Although the population is very scattered in Balochistan, the chief minister has directed [deputy commissioners] to address the complaints raised by the flood victims.”

She said the government would compensate people who have rebuilt their homes on their own.

Mir Khair Muhammad Qalandarani, 43, whose family has been based in the Killi Hafiz Gulzar Qalandarani village for the last 150 years, shifted his family members to a 10-feet, single-room mud house that he built in Dasht to protect them from freezing temperatures.

“Living in poorly constructed mud [houses] will be more difficult during the snowfall and rainy season over the next two months, but we don’t have alternate places in other cities of Balochistan,” he told Arab News.

Qalandarani said many of their livestock died of cold in the beginning of the winter season.

“Now, we are selling the remaining animals to borrow money and re-build one or two rooms for our families to beat the winter,” he added.