Topline
Months of heavy monsoon rains have triggered widespread flooding in Pakistan, some of the worst in the country’s history, leaving large parts of the nation underwater and displacing millions as officials and aid groups rush to stave off a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
Pakistani people carry their belongings as they move to a safer place following flash flood in … [+]
Key Facts
At least 1,000 people have been killed and 1,500 injured in Pakistan since June as a result of heavy monsoon rains, approaching the death toll of the nation’s deadliest floods in 2010.
Climate minister Sherry Rehman called the flooding a “humanitarian disaster of epic proportions” that has affected some 33 million people across the country, around 15% of its entire population.
One-third of Pakistan is underwater, Rehman said, adding that there is “no dry land to pump the water out.”
The floods have washed away crops, homes and critical infrastructure like roads and bridges and early government estimates put damages at more than $10 billion, Pakistan’s planning minister said on Monday.
The World Health Organization on Tuesday said hundreds of health facilities have been damaged across the country and that millions of people are now lacking access to health care and medical treatment.
Floods are projected to worsen in coming days, the WHO said, warning that many are now at an increased risk of waterborne and vector-borne diseases like dengue fever, malaria, diarrheal diseases—as well as other infectious diseases like Covid—due to the inundation.
An aerial view of an inundated town after heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on … [+]
A false color NASA satellite image of flooding in Pakistan on 30 August 2022.
A NASA satellite image showing the same area of Pakistan a year earlier.
Key Background
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the international community to help Pakistan in the wake of the floods. “The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids,” he said. Guterres highlighted the role climate change is playing in the “epochal levels of rain and flooding” and the disaster has reignited debate over who is responsible for the damages caused and, crucially, who is liable to pay for them. Pakistan’s floods come on the heels of months of political and economic instability that have rocked the country.
Displaced people after the flood hit their homes in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on August 30.
Displaced people are being housed in makeshift camps after fleeing from their flood hit homes.
Pakistani people escape areas hit by flash floods using narrow bridges in the northwest Khyber … [+]
Rescue workers use boats to drop children back home after school.
Further Reading
Pakistan emits less than 1% of the world’s planet-warming gases. It’s now drowning (CNN)
Pakistan has been hit by its worst floods in recent memory (Economist)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/08/31/in-photos-pakistan-devastated-after-monsoon-on-steroids-and-deadly-flooding/