Heavy monsoon rains have killed more than 800 people in Pakistan since June in an “unprecedented disaster,” according to a climate change minister who will seek international assistance.
The monsoon season, which usually runs from June to September, is needed to irrigate crops and fill lakes and dams in the Indian Peninsula, but it brings with it a wave of devastation every year.
Torrential rains have again hit much of the country in the past 24 hours, killing at least ten people, including nine children, according to authorities.
“It has been raining for a month now. We have nothing left,” Khanzadi, a resident of Jafarabad in Balochistan province, one of the hardest hit areas, told AFP. “We only had one goat, she also drowned in the flood. Now we have nothing … and we are hungry, ”she added.
Climate Change Minister Sherri Rehman said on Wednesday that the government will seek international assistance once damage assessments are completed.
“Given the scale of the disaster, neither the provinces, nor even Islamabad, can deal with this climate disaster alone,” she told AFP. “Life is in danger, thousands of people have been left homeless (…) It is important that international partners mobilize their help,” she added.
According to the Global Climate Risk Index compiled by the non-governmental organization German Watch, Pakistan is ranked eighth among the most vulnerable countries to extreme weather events due to climate change.
Earlier this year, much of the country experienced a heat wave that reached 51 degrees Celsius in Jacobabad, Sindh.
The city has now been hit by floods that have destroyed homes, washed away roads and bridges, and destroyed crops.
In Sukkur, about 75 kilometers from Jacobabad, volunteers used boats to navigate the city’s flooded streets to distribute food and fresh water to people stuck in their homes.
This year’s rains were the heaviest since 2010, when water covered almost a fifth of the country, killing about 2,000 people and displacing 20 million people, Zahir Ahmed Babar, head of Pakistan’s meteorological department, told AFP. Rainfall is 430 percent above normal in Balochistan and nearly 500 percent in Sindh. More than a meter of rain has fallen in the city of Badidan in Sindh province since August 1. “This is an unprecedented climate disaster,” Rahman said, noting that three million people have been affected. It also destroyed nearly 125,000 homes and damaged 288,000 others, the National Disaster Management Administration said in a statement. In Sindh and Balochistan, officials reported the death of about 700,000 livestock and the destruction of more than 80,000 hectares of farmland. About 3,000 km of roads were damaged.
