Early warning

As indicated in Section 1.5.2, the DDMA delivers early warnings to the population which is at risk of affecting by the disaster. In the 2011 floods, according to 86% of women, the flood relief officers (male) delivered early warning messages door to door, at least two weeks before the flooding. The officers provided information about the alarming situation of rising water levels and the risk of inundating Katcho villages to the male household heads and para heads. Women were not the direct recipients of early warnings since all flood relief officer were males, and due to cultural reasons, these officers only spoke with the male members of villages. Some women also said that the same officers also provided a letter/flyer from the DDMA which stated the same information in local (Sindhi) language. However, as noted in Section 2.8.1, 92.2% of Katcho women never attended school so they were unable to read the content of the letter/flyer.

A government officer came and met with all male members of the village. He told them about the rising water levels and that we should vacate this area immediately. (Shazia, age 28 years, Syed Peerani)

Another 9.1% of women who were unaware about the flood relief officers, said that male household heads informed them about floods. The major mobile networks of that area also sent the text message to their subscribers as mentioned by 2.1% of women. Generally, in Katcho villages, women do not possess mobile phones, thus, here too, women were unable to receive first-hand early warning from a reliable source. Moreover, the early warning messages were on air on national television as well as through radio at the same time and were mentioned by 3.0% of the women. This was the only way that the early warning reached directly to women. Table 6.1 shows the sources of the pre-flood warnings mentioned by the study participants.

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Table 6.1 Sources of pre-flood warnings (n=332)

Sources of information about floods Percentage (95% CI) Flood relief officers 85.6 (81.6-89.4)

Male family members 9.1 (6.1-12.6)

Radio/TV announcement 3.0 (1.4-5.4)

Mobile SMS alerts 2.1 (0.8-4.3)

Relocation decisions

According to women, despite the early warnings, most of the Katcho residents did not relocate to safe locations because they neither had the financial means to travel with their families nor did they have a place to live in outside their villages. Only 8.1% women who said they have close relatives living in the nearby villages were able to relocate on early warning. About 83.7% of them were evacuated during the 2011 floods and another 8.1% chose not to relocate or evacuate (see Table 6.2). Relocation decisions were only taken by male members of the para community and there was no involvement of women in making this decision.

Table 6.2 Relocation during floods (n=332)

Relocation during floods n=332 Percentage (95% CI) Migrated after pre-flood warning 27 8.15 (5.4%–11.6%)

Migrated during floods to the relief camps 278 83.7 (79.3-87.5%)

Didn’t migrate during the floods 27 8.15 (5.4%–11.6%)

In addition to the lack of financial means to safely relocate, other reasons for non- relocation on early warning were 1) low risk perception, 2) holding cattle or livestock, and 3) fear of losing agricultural work.

Low risk perception

Low risk perception was more common in fishing communities where houses are located close to the river because of the nature of their work. People assumed that the rise in water level was temporary and that after some time water would return to its normal level. In the past, after every monsoon season, the water level tended to increase but it had always returned to the normal level a few weeks after the rains had

178 stopped. In the 2011 floods, most of the villagers experienced flooding for the first time. Like Aisha, other villagers thought that the rising water level was temporary and within a few days, the water level would return to its normal level.

We did not realise it could be that dangerous and we did not rely on government notification. We have always lived in front of the river, and every year the water level increased after the monsoon rains but then it went back to normal levels too. (Aisha, age 35 years, Haji Buksh)

Holding cattle or livestock

Another barrier for safe relocation was identified by women as holding cattle or livestock. As discussed in Chapter 4, livestock is a secondary, albeit an important, source of income for Katcho families, and they could not be left unattended at the time of the floods. Women respondents said they did not know where to take the cattle, and neither had they the financial means to transport the cattle to safe locations. Furthermore, many families were still paying off loans that they took out to buy the cattle; thus, they could not leave them behind without anybody looking after them. According to a key informant from DDMA, there was a cattle camp next to the relief camp along with a veterinarian to care for cattle. However, the information about the cattle camp was not provided by the flood relief officers at the time of early warning, which was the reason many villagers could not relocate to the relief camp after receiving the warning.

Fear of losing agricultural work

Women also indicated that since most of the villagers worked as agricultural labourers under the control of vaderas (land owners), it was mandatory to obtain the vaderas’ consent before relocating to a safer place. Haseena from Ali Malah said that one of the reasons that they didn’t relocate when they received the early warnings was because they were afraid that the vadera would hire someone else and they would lose their employment. Women thought that if the vaderas had given the flood warning, the villagers would have taken it more seriously and have left earlier.

179 We didn’t go because we thought that Sain (vadera) would have hired

someone else and we could have lost work (Haseena, age 32 years, Ali Malah).

Families deciding against relocation or evacuation

There were 8.1% (CI 5.4%–11.6%) (see Table 6.2) of women who said that their families did not migrate during the floods. In Katiar village the entire population of one para choose not to relocate to the relief camps. The para consisted of 50 houses, some made of concrete whereas others were of mud. Shakila, a resident of Katiar village, mentioned that the mud houses in their para collapsed during the floods. Those who had concrete houses shared their houses with those whose houses were damaged. When I asked one woman why their para members did not go to the relief camps, she said that if they had gone to the relief camps no one would have looked after their land, cattle, and agriculture sites.

According to Shakila, the male members of her para committee decided that they should not go to the relief camp because it would be very crowded and unsafe for children and women. She also thought that it was a wise decision not to have relocated to the relief camps because later they learned about the problems people faced who lived in the relief camps and they felt relieved that they had decided to stay in their para.

Our para members decided that we would not go to the relief camps. We heard that hundreds of people were relocating there. The committee consisted of wise people; they knew what kind of arrangements would be there. That’s why we did not go there. (Shakila, age 39 years, Katiar)