Islamabad: Deaths from widespread flooding in Pakistan topped 1,000 since mid-June, officials said on Sunday, as the country’s climate minister called the deadly monsoon season “a serious climate catastrophe.”
Flash floods from heavy rains have washed away villages and crops as soldiers and rescuers evacuated stranded residents to the safety of relief camps and provided food to thousands of displaced Pakistanis.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority reported that the death toll since the monsoon season started earlier this year in mid-June had reached 1,061 people after new deaths were reported in different provinces.
Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and the country’s top climate official, said in a video posted on Twitter that Pakistan is experiencing a “serious climate catastrophe, one of the harshest in a decade.”
“We are at the moment at the ground zero of the front line of extreme weather events, in an unrelenting cascade of heatwaves, forest fires, flash floods, multiple glacial lake outbursts, flood events, and now the monster monsoon of the decade is wreaking non-stop havoc throughout the country,” she said. The country’s ambassador to the European Union retweeted the on-camera statement.
Flooding from the Swat River affected northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where tens of thousands of people — especially in the Charsadda and Nowshehra districts have been evacuated from their homes to relief camps set up in government buildings. Many have also taken shelter on roadsides, said Kamran Bangash, a spokesperson for the provincial government.
Bangash said some 180,000 people had been evacuated from Charsadda and 150,000 from Nowshehra district villages.
Khaista Rehman, 55, no relation to the climate minister, took shelter with his wife and three children on the side of the Islamabad-Peshawar highway after his home in Charsadda was submerged overnight.
“Thank God we are safe now on this road quite high from the flooded area,” he said. “Our crops are gone, and our home is destroyed, but I am grateful to Allah that we are alive, and I will restart life with my sons.”
The unprecedented monsoon season has affected all four provinces of the country. Nearly 300,000 homes have been destroyed, numerous roads have become impassable, and widespread power outages have been affecting millions of people.
Pope Francis said on Sunday that he wanted to ensure his “closeness to the populations of Pakistan hit by floods of disastrous proportions.” During a pilgrimage to the Italian city of L’Aquila, which was hit by a deadly earthquake in 2009, Francis said he was praying “for the many victims, for the injured and the evacuees, and for international solidarity to be swift and effective”. generous.”
Rehman told Turkish news outlet TRT World that “we may well have a quarter or a third of Pakistan under water by the time the rains stop.”
“This is a global crisis, and of course, we will need better planning and sustainable development on the ground. … We will need climate-resilient crops and structures,” he said.
In May, Rehman told BBC Newshour that the country’s north and south were seeing extreme weather events due to rising temperatures. “So in the north, we are… experiencing what is known as glacial lake outburst floods, of which we have a lot because Pakistan is home to the largest glaciers outside of the polar region.”
The government has deployed soldiers to help civilian authorities rescue and relief operations across the country. The Pakistani army also said it airlifted a 22 tourists trapped in a valley in the country’s north to safety.
Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif visited flooding victims in Jafferabad in Baluchistan. He vowed the government would provide housing to all those who lost their homes.