There’s a timeless joke about a man who steps out of his house each morning, only to slip on the same banana peel lying just a few steps ahead. After a few days, he doesn’t even try to avoid it anymore. Instead, he sighs and says, “Here we go again—I guess I’ll just slip one more time.”
What was once a lighthearted anecdote has morphed into a painful metaphor for Pakistan’s yearly encounter with floods. Like that man, the nation braces for disaster each monsoon season—knowing it’s coming, but doing little to prevent it. Year after year, rainwater swallows homes, drowns crops, and takes lives, while those in charge watch from a distance—well-fed, well-paid, and comfortably dry.
Since July 2001, Pakistan has been on an endless loop of destruction. In 2003, Sindh was submerged by above-normal monsoon rains. By 2007, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, and coastal Balochistan were devastated again. Cyclone Yemyin struck in 2007, followed by flooding in 2009. The apocalyptic floods of 2010 affected nearly the entire country, particularly Punjab and KP. Then came the 2011 Balochistan and Kohistan floods, where over 5 million people were impacted in Sindh alone. Each year that followed brought more death and destruction—2012, 2013, 2014—each September marked by sorrow, displacement, and broken promises.
And now, in 2025, the banana peel lies right where we left it. Pre-monsoon rains in June unleashed catastrophic flash floods across Punjab. Earlier, in Swat, 18 tourists lost their lives while enjoying what they thought would be a serene picnic by the river. Ten more went missing, and dozens had to be rescued as waters rose without warning. By July, the flood death toll had climbed to 180—Punjab being the worst hit. Fields became lakes, homes became rubble, and once again, the country slipped.
Yet nothing changes. Politicians arrive by helicopter for photo ops, surveying the damage from the sky before retreating to safety. Bureaucrats scramble to prepare damage reports. Government officials issue calls for international aid, citing grim statistics and emotional appeals. Then they retreat, and the cycle quietly resets.
Meanwhile, the common man—the one who lives by the rivers, who depends on the land, who cannot afford privilege or distance—waits. He knows that July 2026 is just around the corner. And he knows, deep down, that nothing will be done to stop the next slip.
Pakistan’s monsoon floods are no longer natural disasters alone—they are manmade failures, repeated endlessly by a system that refuses to learn. The banana peel lies in plain sight, yet the nation keeps walking toward it with eyes wide open.
