The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has produced a Winter Contingency Plan for 2023-24 to address numerous natural hazards that the province may face during the winter season.
The plan contains measures for dealing with risks such as severe low temperatures, fog, smog, snowfall, rainfall, landslides, flash floods, and seismic activity in the mountainous north and west.
According to PDMA Director General Muhammad Qaisar Khan, the Winter Contingency Plan 2023-24 was initiated in October 2023 and involves key stakeholders such as the federal government, provincial line departments, the district administration, UNDP GLOF-II, and other development partners.
The plan also includes digital data gathering tools, such as district-specific dangers, vulnerability profiles, hazard impacts, damages, compensation details, resource mapping, need assessment, and coordination activities.
The plan provides a comprehensive overview of the province’s winter hazard profiles, including details on the composite risk score for each district based on various hazards and outlines corresponding risks, as well as an estimate of the vulnerable population in the event of an emergency.
The plan also instructs districts on how to map sensitive areas and prepare contingency plans, as well as identify roles and duties of various departments to guarantee a coordinated reaction to negative scenarios.
The province is facing many winter risks, each of which poses its own set of challenges, including as interruptions in everyday life, road closures, building collapses, landslides, and supply and commodity shortages.