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Harrowing images are reaching us from Pakistan these days. According to official figures, more than 1,200 people have already lost their lives as a result of the flood disaster, and millions are fleeing. In the province of Sindh, which has been hit hardest by devastating floods since mid-June, military helicopters and boats are also in action, provincial government spokesman Murtaza Wahab said on Friday: “It’s a race against time.”
Heavy rains in the past week have hit the Indus, which rises in the Himalayas and the Arabian Sea to the south of Pakistan empties, let it overflow its banks again. Nearly 20,000 cubic meters of water per second was now flowing downstream and would soon reach major cities in Sindh, the Disaster Management Agency warned. “We are trying to reach the people who are still in the middle of the water without food or shelter,” said Rustam Jamali, a volunteer from the city of Dadu.
The floods, caused by the heaviest rainfall in more than three decades, have already claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people since mid-June. According to the government, more than 33 million people in the country with around 220 million inhabitants are affected by the floods.
In the north of the South Asian country, where several places are still flooded a week after the last rains ended, thousands held out without food and shelter. “It’s like we’re refugees in our own villages. We can’t walk a few hundred meters home,” said a local resident from Swat Township.
The UN children’s fund Unicef warned on Wednesday that the “dangerous humanitarian situation could worsen in the coming days and weeks” as heavy rains were expected in regions that were already flooded. In the affected areas, millions of children and hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are at risk and urgently need humanitarian aid.
Source: Nachrichten
