Relief efforts intensified on Tuesday in heavily flooded areas of Pakistan to help the millions affected by torrential monsoon rains that flooded a third of the country and killed more than 1,100 people.
Incessant rain since June has caused the worst flooding in more than a decade, sweeping away rows of staple crops and destroying or damaging more than a million homes. Authorities and charities are finding it difficult to deliver humanitarian aid to more than 33 million victims, especially in hard-to-reach areas, as roads have been blocked and bridges washed away by floods. Drylands in the south and east are restricted, and overpasses and railroads are crowded with displaced people fleeing the flooded plains.
“We have nowhere to cook. We need help,” Rimsha Bibi, a schoolgirl from Dera Ghazi Khan district in central Pakistan, told AFP.
Heavy, sometimes destructive rains fall in Pakistan during the annual rainy season, which is critical for agriculture and the filling of rivers and dams. But the current rains are unprecedented in three decades. Pakistani officials blamed climate change for doubling the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events around the world.
“Watching the destruction on the ground is really amazing,” Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman told AFP. She added: “When we ship water pumps, they tell us: where do we pump water? It’s one big ocean, there’s no land to take water.” “Literally a third” of the country is under water, she said, comparing the disaster to disaster films. Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said Pakistan needed more than $10 billion to repair and rebuild damaged infrastructure. “Infrastructure, especially communications, roads, agriculture and livelihoods, have suffered massive damage,” he told AFP. And the Indus River, which runs along the South Asian country, is in danger of flooding due to heavy rains flowing from its tributaries in the north. The country as a whole is averaging twice as much monsoon rain than usual, according to the Met Office, but the average rainfall in the provinces of Balochistan and Sindh over the past three decades has been four times the average.
international assistance
The flooding came at the worst time for Pakistan, whose economy is in a slump. Her government, which turned to the international community for help, declared a state of emergency. The first humanitarian flights from Turkey and the UAE have recently begun arriving, while other countries including Canada, Australia and Japan have pledged to do their part. And the United Nations announced it would launch a formal appeal Tuesday to raise $160 million in donations to fund the emergency. Pakistan mainly needs international support, and the floods have exacerbated the difficulties it is facing. Prices for basic commodities, especially onions, tomatoes and chickpeas, are on the rise as vendors lament the lack of supplies from the provinces of Sindh and Punjab. On Monday, there was good news: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced the approval of a loan program for Pakistan, which will allocate the first tranche of $1.1 billion. And makeshift camps are scattered throughout Pakistan, in schools, on highways and at military bases.
In the northwestern city of Nowshera, a technical training institute has become a center housing 2,500 flood victims in the heat of summer, with occasional food aid and limited water for washing. One of them, Malang Jan, 60, told AFP: “For three days we ate nothing but rice… I never thought the day would come when we would live like this. We have lost our paradise and now we are forced to live a miserable life.”
