Pakistanis displaced by floods / AFP Yonhap News
Pakistan’s government said more than 1,000 people have died from flooding that began in June.
According to the Associated Press, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency said on the 28th (local time) that 1,033 people have died from flooding, and 119 people have died in the last 24 hours alone. Pakistani authorities said this year’s floods are on record similar to 2010, when more than 2,000 people died and regarding a fifth of the country was submerged.
“Right now, we are at the forefront of extreme weather events, from heatwaves, wildfires, flash floods and glacial meltdowns to the monstrous monsoon, the largest in ten years,” Pakistan’s climate change minister, Sheri Lehman, tweeted.
Pakistan’s recent flooding has swept through villages, roads, bridges, people, livestock and crops across all four states. Balochistan and Sindh, the least developed southern provinces of Pakistan, suffered heavy losses. Large-scale flooding also occurred in Khyber Paktunk in the northwestern part of the country due to the flow of water from the south. “There are no roads and the communication system and electricity in the affected area have been cut off,” said a Khyber Paktunk official.
“We are experiencing unprecedented heavy rain,” Lehman said. Rest for rescue and recovery is also not allowed. It is far from the usual monsoon (wet),” he told The Guardian. “We have a climate dystopia at our doorstep.”
Pakistani authorities are dispatching soldiers and rescue workers and providing food for thousands of victims.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Billawal Bhutto Jadari said he hoped financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would consider the economic ramifications, saying that dealing with the flood “needs overwhelming financial support”.
South Asian countries are already facing economic crises such as high inflation, currency depreciation, and current account deficits due to COVID-19 and rising global food and energy prices.
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