Historic flooding submerges third of Pakistan
A third of Pakistan is underwater as a result of historic flooding, the country’s climate minister has confirmed.
Flash flooding has seen roads, homes and crops get washed away across Pakistan, which Sherry Rehman has called a “crisis of unimaginable proportions”.
“It’s all one big ocean, there’s no dry land to pump the water out,” Ms Rehman said.
According to officials, at least 1136 people have died since the start of the monsoon season in June, with the summer rain being the heaviest recorded in a decade.
The Pakistani government has declared a state of emergency and is blaming climate change for the record-breaking downpour.
“Literally, one-third of Pakistan is underwater right now, which has exceeded every boundary, every norm we’ve seen in the past,” Ms Rehman told the AFP news agency.
“We’ve never seen anything like this.”
Of those who have died, officials said on Monday that 75 people were killed in the previous 24 hours alone and that they expect the death toll to continue rising.
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, told the BBC that a third of those who have died are believed to be children.
“We are still coming to grips with the extent of the damage,” he said.
It’s estimated that 33 million - or one in seven - Pakistanis have been affected by the floods, with entire villages in the country’s northern Swat Valley being cut off after bridges and roads were swept away.
Thousands of people in the area have been ordered to evacuate, but authorities are still struggling to reach residents even with the help of helicopters.
“Village after village has been wiped out. Millions of houses have been destroyed,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Sunday after flying over the area.
For those who have escaped to safer areas, they have been crowded into makeshift camps across the country.
Fazal Malik, a flood victim currently staying in a school that was being used to house 2500 evacuees in the north-western Kyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said the living conditions were “miserable”.
“Our self-respect is at stake,” Malik said.
This year’s flooding has been compared to the floods that devastated Pakistan in 2010, which were the deadliest in the country’s history and killed more than 2000 people.
With growing concerns about the cost of rebuilding following the disaster, Pakistan’s government has appealed for financial assistance from aid agencies, friendly countries and international donors.
"A very early, preliminary estimate is that it is big, it is higher than $10 billion ($NZD 16.18 billion)," Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal told Reuters.
Mr Iqbal added that almost half of the country’s cotton crops had been washed away, while fields growing vegetables, fruit and rice had been significantly damaged.
“Our crop spanned over 5,000 acres on which the best quality rice what sown and is eaten by you and us,” 70-year-old rice farmer Khalil Ahmed, whose fields in the south-eastern city of Sukkur were devastated by the floods, told the AFP.
“All that is finished.”
Image: Getty Images