Historic flooding submerges third of Pakistan
<p dir="ltr">A third of Pakistan is underwater as a result of historic flooding, the country’s climate minister has confirmed.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Flash flooding has seen roads, homes and crops get washed away across Pakistan, which Sherry Rehman has called a “crisis of unimaginable proportions”.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“It’s all one big ocean, there’s no dry land to pump the water out,” Ms Rehman said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The Pakistani government has declared a state of emergency and is blaming climate change for the record-breaking downpour.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“We’ve never seen anything like this.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, told the <em><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62712301" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BBC</a></em> that a third of those who have died are believed to be children.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“We are still coming to grips with the extent of the damage,” he said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">For those who have escaped to safer areas, they have been crowded into makeshift camps across the country.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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”.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Our self-respect is at stake,” Malik said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“All that is finished.”</p>
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<p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>
