On 15 August 2025, Bishnoi in Buner district was swept away. The flood arrived without warning, surging without mercy, rivers roaring with uprooted logs and crashing into homes. Among those trapped was a family of 20. They clung to whatever they could carry — women and men hauling what their backs allowed, children pressed tight to their sides. When the waters receded, the floods had spared only two. Some bodies were found; others were still missing. What remained was what the floods had chosen to spare (BBC News).
This is the face of the 2025 monsoon floods. Atleast 706 people have lost lives since 26th June 2025, with 427 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and hundreds more across GB, AJK and Sindh (The Economic Times). In Buner alone, rescue teams confirmed 207 deaths (Soomro and Shah) after a cloudburst turned villages into ruins. Homes were swept away; roads carved out of mountains. Thousands left with nothing but despair.
When Alerts Fail
But it wasn’t just the waters that shattered lives. It was the silence on their phones, the sirens that never rang, the alerts that never came. It was the collapse of Pakistan’s early warning system (EWS), years in the making, and touted as “multi-hazard”, that turned a vulnerability into mass tragedy.
Pakistan’s Multi-Hazard Early Warning System — meant to detect floods, glacial-lake outburst floods (GLOFs), cyclones, droughts, even tsunamis, has failed not once, but twice: promised in the wake of 2010’s flood tragedy, scheduled for completion by 2022, yet now in 2025, it remains a phantom (National Disaster Management Plan).
Former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser slammed the federal government for squandering World Bank’s USD 188 million under the Integrated Flood Resilience and Adaptation Project (IFRAP), leaving vital early warning systems inoperative and millions of Pakistanis unprotected when catastrophe struck (Business Recorder) On paper, it looked like resilience. In practice, it abandoned vulnerable communities.
The silence was felt far beyond Buner. In Ghizer valley of Gilgit-Baltistan, resident Adil Shah Yasani recalled how no official alert came before the GLOF struck on 22 August 2025, despite the presence of the USD 37 million UNDP GLOF risk reduction project. Local herders spotted the flood rushing toward the village and ran to warn residents, saving lives even as the waters swallowed nearly 330 homes. A community that had been promised resilience faced, instead, the relentless surge of water (UNDP).
Minutes, Not Hours
What happened in Ghizer echoed across KP, AJK, and the rest of GB. No text message. No loudspeaker. No knock on the door. They had minutes, not hours, to react. They tied ropes across raging rivers. They pushed their children onto makeshift rafts. Many stood helpless, watching the water take everything they loved.
An early warning system that does not reach its people is not an early warning system. It is betrayal dressed as policy.
Excuses, Again
Officials now say cloudbursts cannot be predicted. Technically true. But misleading. Other countries issue probabilistic forecasts, flagging the risk of flash floods and heavy rainfall so communities can prepare. Pakistan chose not to.
Since 2010, disaster management has remained a patchwork: NDMA at the top, PDMAs in the provinces, DDMAs at the districts. Each step removed from the people who need the warnings. Each disaster follows the same script, tragedy, donor appeals, short-term relief, then silence. Money is secured, promises made, systems announced. And yet, when the skies open, the villages drown alone.
Not Just Rain
The floods of 2025 are not just another climate story. They are a story of governance failure. Climate change brought the hazard, yes. But it was neglect that turned it into devastation.
If this cycle continues, every monsoon will bring not only rain, but graves.
Silence cannot be our warning. Communities deserve alerts, action, and accountability, not desolation.
Way Forward
Pakistan cannot afford another monsoon caught unprepared. A multi-hazard early warning system must be fully operational, reaching communities directly, through mobile alerts, loudspeakers, radio, and local networks.
Families must receive timely, actionable warnings, backed by probabilistic forecasts and community drills that tell them not just “what” is coming, but “how” to respond. Empty promises have cost lives for too long.
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