Indus touched more than one million cusec level of water triggering breaches in embankments resulted in massive destruction of life and property as many towns and fertile lands of Punjab and Sindh faced immense consequences with decayed infrastructure and plummeting of standing crops. The flood loss estimates rose to 43 billion dollors almost equal to the expenditures incurred on the War on Terror. If affected 79 out of 124 districts of Pakistan: 24 districts in KPK, 19 in Sindh 12 in Punjab ,10 in balouchistan and seven each in AJK and Gilgit Baltistan.Two million hectares cultivated area of field crops worth Rs.73 billion also became the proof of flood consequences.In the face of such difficulties disaster management has become indispensable.
The foremost aspect of disaster management is rescue.Rescue is the name given to sustained action to reduce the risks to life and property from the hazards and their effects.It involves certain activities and steps even before rescuing;such as;scientific hazard analysis,vulnerability analysis,risk assessment and planning.By taking such steps it becomes definite that affected people can be well evacuated by applying all the safety standards.If People are stuck in water due to flood or pushed in debris due to earthquake,rescue teams are first to reach the scene.Hence rescue means the safe evacuation of those suffering.In 2010 floods when people were stuck in water,the rescue operations were lauched to bring them out of the hazardous areas.But the calamity was so high and beyond our own strength that available resources could not prove sufficient to cope with situation.
Apart from this some systematic perversities also multiplied the miseries as the flood was gradually moving from KPK to the rest of the country no effective preparatory measures were taken to face the upcoming tragedy.Many settlements in the bed of the River Indus were not demolished which further increased the jeopardy.Besides that river embankments at several places grew weak and hence were not able to sustain such a heavy flow of water.
