A scene from calamity-hit northern India (Image: The Hindu)

The early onset of this year’s monsoon has triggered a series of disastrous floods in northern India, serving as an ominous reminder of the threat posed by the coming change of season.

India’s The Hindu newspaper reports that 138 people have been killed in northern India due to flash flooding, brought on by violent downpours in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh states. 12,000 religious pilgrims are also stranded at a shrine in northern India, and the Yamuna River is rising to dangerous levels near Delhi.

Rainfall over Sabzazar in southern Lahore last week

Last week’s primary monsoonal burst over northern Punjab brought much-needed respite to sweltering Lahoris, however a senior United Nations official has warned that this year’s rains could represent a curse instead of a blessing if a crucial appeal for funds is not met.

According to Voice of America the UN’s director of humanitarian operations John Ging said that millions could be left vulnerable if US$43 million in emergency funds is not raised. “We may be called upon in a couple of weeks to support the Pakistani authorities in responding to flooding” Ging told Voice of America. “That has been the pattern over the last number of years, so we need to be prepared. And yet the stocks are not there. We have not got the resources to preposition the stocks as we had last year because of the fall-off in the funding”.

A bridge in northern Pakistan washed out in 2010 due to flooding

This will evoke painful memories for Pakistan, which in 2010 suffered the worst floods in the nation’s history. 20 million people were affected, at least 1,781 people were killed and US$43 billion in damage were recorded when heavy monsoonal rainfall swept across the country. At one stage around twenty per cent of the nation’s land was under water, and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon described it as the worst disaster he had ever witnessed. Many parts of Pakistan are still yet to recover from the calamity.