Shock, panic, guilt and grief grip survivors as mental health experts warn of chronic trauma from repeated exposure to natural disasters
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or a 10-year-old, the loss is proving hard to grasp. “It has been four days since I last saw my home,” says Ahsan. He has not yet understood that the floods completely swept away his house in Dogoro Basha village in Shigar, Pakistan.
His confusion is part of the devastating aftermath of long months of rain and floods that have devastated thousands of families in the country’s northern provinces and left more than 860 people dead so far.
For Muhammad Shareef, 19, a university student living away from home in Islamabad, the distance does not help. His home in Dogoro Basha was also destroyed, and his family is now displaced. “My house and land are gone. My mother is now living in a tent. The only thing I have left standing is my father’s grave [marker],” he says.
