Flood and electricity

For over 40 hours, the rain just didn’t stop. This city couldn’t handle it. The areas near the rivers were completely underwater. So many lives were lost, and billions of rupees worth of property just washed away. Roads were blocked, and half the city lost power. There was no sign of the government doing anything in the federal capital city of the country.

I live in the middle of the city, and I'm here complaining about things like power outages.

We’ve become so used to having reliable electricity over the past several years. Sure, there are occasional outages, but nothing like this. This time, the flood hit the grid hard, and we lost power for more than 30 hours. This created disruption is telecommunication services, we can hardly make voice calls but no data services at all. No broadband service active.

My kitchen is fully electrified. We don’t use gas anymore because we thought we didn’t need it. But without power, we had no way to cook. I couldn’t even make a quick trip to the store because I didn’t have enough cash on hand, and with ATMs offline and no way to make digital payments, my family had to go hungry for much longer than we should’ve. It’s shocking when you realize how quickly life comes to a standstill when systems you’ve relied on suddenly fail.

This isn’t some remote area—I’m in the middle of the city, and I’m here complaining about things like power outages and lack of food. But honestly, these are small problems compared to what others are going through. People were stranded on rooftops, calling for help for hours, only to be swept away by the floods. Buses full of passengers were buried by landslides. Businesses were wiped out overnight. People lost their life savings in homes that are now underwater. Highways, bridges, and power plants are all damaged or destroyed.

But here’s the thing—it’s not like this event came out of nowhere. We had warnings. We knew days in advance that there was going to be heavy rainfall. This wasn’t a sudden, freak disaster. Yet, the government seemed completely unprepared. Why wasn’t the electricity grid protected? Why were telecom services knocked out when people needed them the most? Why weren’t roads and bridges being quickly repaired? And most importantly, where was the rescue effort? The lack of urgency and preparedness is beyond frustrating.

At the end of the day, I’m just an ordinary person worrying about my family. I can make sure that we’re better prepared for the next disaster because, clearly, relying on the government isn’t enough anymore.