ISLAMABAD: As incidents of drowning of people in flash floods in various parts of the country, especially during the current monsoon season, continue to rise, Pakistan, like other countries of the world, would observe the UN World Drowning Prevention Day on July 25.
The day is observed to raise awareness about the tragedy of drowning and demands urgent action to save lives and prevent lifelong disabilities caused by drowning.
The World Health Organisation of UN emphasises teaching communities about water safety to develop national drowning prevention plans to help keep people safe around water.
According to the Global Status Report on Drowning Prevention, 2024, WHO estimated 23,000 drowning fatalities in Pakistan in 2021, reflecting a death rate per 100,000 at 9.6.
The report points out poor governance and coordination to prevent drowning. There is no national focal point for drowning prevention, neither any drowning prevention strategy, nor is there a national coordination mechanism for drowning prevention.
The report says there is no legislation for fencing around private or public swimming pools, but there is a legislation mandating lifejacket use when boating.
Every year, scores of people in the country are drowned in flash floods, which can be prevented if water safety equipment and machinery are kept at strategic locations alongside rivers, nullahs, lakes and sea beaches.
The NDMA and PDMAs were created for disaster management, but these institutions have not installed safety equipment.
Installation of water safety equipment at strategic locations is required particularly during the monsoon season. Personal flotation devices, safety lines and floats, rescue poles, fences and barriers and first aid kits are of the highest importance at strategic locations alongside rivers and lakes in northern part of the country which are thronged by tourists during the hot summer season.
A new phenomenon of urban flooding is now being seen which also witnesses cases of drowning. The newly-developed residential areas like DHA and Bahria Towns have also been hit by urban flooding, but no water safety equipment have been seen installed in these areas, too.
According to statistics released by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), 234 people lost their lives and 594 suffered injuries from June 26 to July 22, and during the past 24 hours, 12 people lost their lives due to floods.
The highest number of drowning cases occurred last month when 18 people drowned in the Swat River.
An estimated 236,000 people drown every year, and drowning is one of the 10 leading causes of death of children aged between 5 and 14 years. More than 90 per cent of drowning deaths occur in rivers, lakes, wells, domestic water storage vessels and swimming pools in low- and middle-income countries, with children and adolescents in rural areas disproportionately affected.
The first WHO global status report on drowning prevention reveals that at least 3 million people globally have lost their lives due to drowning over the past decade. An estimated 300,000 of these drowning deaths occurred in 2021 alone, 43 percent of which were among children aged 14 years or younger. The Western Pacific region and the South-East Asia region accounted for the greatest number of drowning deaths.
Drowning disproportionately affects the poor. The vast majority of drowning deaths (92 percent) occur in low- and middle-income countries, where drowning death rates are 3.2 times higher than those in high-income countries.
Legislation is an underused, albeit powerful, drowning-prevention tool. In some cases, legislation addressing specific drowning risks has high coverage, yet the comprehensiveness of individual laws varies greatly. There is a notable absence of legislation to address specific drowning risks.
Just 14 percent of countries that are part of the report, covering 630 million people, have national laws for fencing around the perimeter of private and/or public swimming pools for preventing unsupervised access by children. These findings reveal that legislation is often out of step with the scale of the challenge.
The WHO report says that increasing global investment in drowning prevention could save the lives of over 774,000 children; prevent 178,000 non-fatal drowning victims from sustaining severe, life-limiting injury; and avert more than $400 billion in potential economic losses in high burden low- and middle-income countries by 2050.
Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2025
