Pakistan struggles to prevent further loss of life as it recovers from one of its worst weather disasters, with floods threatening to cover up to a third of the country inhabited by 220 million people by the end of the monsoon season.
Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said on Sunday that the unprecedented rain had created a “climate catastrophe” with floodwaters submerging homes, destroying farmland and displacing millions of people.
“We had to call in the navy for the first time to operate in Indo-Pakistan, because many parts of the country resemble a small ocean,” she told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
On Monday, the death toll reached 1,061 since mid-June, according to the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), as relentless rain raised fears of more deaths from come over.
“When this is over, we could have a quarter or a third of Pakistan under water,” Rehman told Turkish news agency TRT World on Thursday.
New satellite images from Maxar Technologies showed the scale of the disaster on Monday – completely submerged homes and fields along the Indus River, as well as the cities of Rajanpur and Rojhan in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province.
A video released by the Pakistan Army showed troops carrying out dangerous helicopter rescues of people trapped in floodwaters – including a boy trapped in rocks in the middle of a turbulent river in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Flash floods destroyed more than 3,000 kilometers of roads, 130 bridges and 495,000 homes were damaged, according to the latest NDMA situation report, making access to the flooded areas even more difficult.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Butto-Zardari said Sunday that this year’s monsoon season was “absolutely devastating”.
“I haven’t seen any destruction or devastation on this scale,” Butto-Zardari said. “I find it very difficult to put into words the speeches we are used to, be it monsoon rains or floods, do not seem to encapsulate the ongoing devastation and disaster that we are still witnessing.”
a national calamity
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif joined the relief efforts over the weekend, dropping supplies from a helicopter in areas difficult to reach by boat or land, according to videos from his office.
“Visiting areas affected by floods and meeting people, the magnitude of the calamity is greater than estimated,” Sharif said in a tweet on Saturday. “The times demand that we unite as a nation in support of our people facing this calamity. Let’s overcome our differences and support our people who need us today.”
After meeting with ambassadors and diplomats in Islamabad on Friday (26), he asked for help from the international community.
On Monday, Peter Ophoff, chief delegate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Pakistan, said the aid network had asked for more than $25 million. to provide urgent aid to some 324,000 people in the country.
“Looking at the immeasurable damage the floods have caused, it is slowly becoming clear to us that relief efforts will take a long time. It will be a long drenched road ahead as the people of Pakistan begin their journey back to what is left of their homes,” said Ophoff.
More than 3.1 million people were displaced by waters in “sea-like” locations that damaged more than half a million homes in various districts across the country, according to an IFRC statement.
Abrar ul Haq, president of the relief network in Pakistan, said on Friday that water was not the only challenge for aid workers in the region.
“These torrential floods have severely restricted transport and mobility. The threat of Covid-19 and damage to vehicles, infrastructure and connectivity are making our emergency relief efforts nearly impossible. Most affected people are also immobile or isolated, making it difficult for them to reach them,” he said.
‘Monsoon of the Decade’
Pakistan is already experiencing its eighth cycle of monsoon rains, Rehman said on Thursday, an anomaly in a country that normally sees three or four such rainy periods a year.
“Pakistan is experiencing one of the most serious climate catastrophes in the world,” Rehman said in a video statement.
“We are at this ground zero point on the frontline of extreme weather events, which we have seen since the beginning of this year from a relentless cascade of heat waves, wildfires, flash floods, multiple glacier lake explosion events and now the monstrous monsoon of the decade.”
In his remarks on Sunday, Butto-Zardari said Pakistan is bearing the brunt of climate change as other countries with higher carbon footprints do little to reduce their emissions.
“Pakistan contributes negligible amounts to the overall carbon footprint, but we are ravaged by weather disasters like these over and over again, and we have to adapt according to our limited resources.”
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
