Pakistani Prime Minister Says ‘Biblical Flood’ Will Hit Other Countries

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has warned that climate change will not spare other countries the kind of disaster that has left about a third of his country under water – and millions of children at risk of water-borne diseases.

The floods have killed more than 1,600 people in the country since June. Sharif told the United Nations General Assembly on Friday to unite and “act now” before it’s too late.

“One thing is very clear, what happened in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan,” Sharif told world leaders.

For 40 days and 40 nights, a biblical flood fell, destroying centuries of climate records, defying everything we knew about disasters and how to manage them.”

said Sharif

He gave firsthand details of the scale and magnitude of the catastrophe facing his country, where flooding caused by record monsoon rains and melting glaciers have killed more than 1,600 people since June.

Sharif said parts of the country “are still submerged in an ocean of human suffering”.

“In this ground zero of climate change, 33 million people, including women and children, are now at high risk of health risks,” he said.

Authorities have warned it could take up to six months for floodwaters to recede in the hardest-hit areas of the country, as fears mount over the threat posed by water-borne diseases including cholera and dengue.

The flood left 3.4 million children in need of “immediate and life-saving support”, according to Unicef, leaving them vulnerable to contracting waterborne diseases including dengue and malaria.

“The undeniable and inconvenient truth is that this calamity was not triggered by anything we did,” he said.

Pakistan is responsible for less than 1% of the gases that warm the planet, European Union data show, but it is the eighth most vulnerable nation to the climate crisis, according to the Global Climate Risk Index.

The country is paying a heavy price, not only with lives, but also with schools, houses and bridges destroyed.

At the UN, Sharif said that life in Pakistan has changed forever and fears that the country will be “left alone and unable to deal with the crisis we did not create”.

He explained that it was “totally reasonable” to expect some approximation of justice for these losses and damages, warning that “clearly the time to talk about action has passed”.

The country’s National Disaster Management Authority says that among the 1,606 deaths recorded so far, 579 are children.

Sharif told the UN that in addition to the lives lost, one million homes were destroyed and another million damaged.

He also said that more than a million farm animals were killed and four million acres of crops were swept away.

He said he was “fully committed” to rebuilding Pakistan, but warned other countries to focus on the future, which includes tackling climate change.

“It’s about time we took a break from 20th century concerns to return to 21st century challenges,” Sharif said.

“The whole definition of national security has changed today. And unless the world’s leaders unite to act and act now on a common agreed agenda, there will be no land to fight wars. Nature will fight back. And for that, humanity is no match for anything.”