PESHAWAR: Even after suffering many losses in natural calamities, Khyber Pkhtunkhwa province has the weakest early warning system.

With monsoon season just around the corner, disaster prone Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has no radar system to warn about the weather changes. The only radar it had in Dera Ismail Khan has run its course and expired now.

Experts are of the opinion that early warning system(EWS) is the first line of defence against natural disasters but Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at the moment is vulnerable since the radar at DI Khan, which was functional since 1998, is not working anymoreand the new one in Mardan is not yet operational.

Mushtaq Ali Shah, the director at meteorological directorate, said that work was underway onthe building of radar systeminMardan.

The machinery has not yet been installed. It will take some time to make it operational.

The other radar system installed in 1998 is not working anymore.

`Every radar has a life span. The one in DI Khan has run its course and it is obsolete now, said Mr Shah. He said that the EWS at DI Khan covered a large area of southern districts and even areas of Peshawar.

The EWS in Mardan would cost about Rs300 million. It was reported that after DI Khan, the most suitable place to install a radar system was Mardan. Once installed, it would cover the entire Peshawar and Mardan valley.

It would be help in reading weather conditions and systems.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was hit hard in 2010 by floods, termed as the worst floods in the history of Pakistan. The calamity prodded the government to look at the issue of prepared-ness or ironically its lack of preparedness for natural disasters a bit seriously.

The federal government approved a project of Rs7 billion to install an Early Warning System across the country. The Federal government reportedly has run short of funds, which is delaying installing EWS across the country.

Despite being hit most recently by floods in Chitral, the Khyber Pakhtunl(hwa government has not yet been able to install state of the art equipment or trained staff to establish an effective EWS.

`If you look at the disaster preparedness or EWS, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the weakest in this respect,` said the official. There are 14 meteorological observatories and just one weather forecasting office, which lacks trained staff and latest equipment. There are five automatic weather stations out of which four are operational.

Experts say that there are places in Swat, DI Khan, Shangla, Hazara and Kohistan where some sort of EWS could help in monitoring the weather.