SUKKUR, Pakistan — Aid efforts ramped up across
flooded Pakistan on Tuesday to help tens
of millions of people affected by relentless monsoon rains that have submerged
a third of the country and claimed more than 1,100 lives.
اضافة اعلان
The rains that
began in June have unleashed the worst flooding in more than a decade, washing
away swathes of vital crops and damaging or destroying more than a million
homes.
Authorities and
charities are struggling to accelerate aid delivery to more than 33 million
people, a challenging task in areas cut off because roads and bridges have been
washed away.
Displaced people
have been wandering what remains of dry land seeking shelter, food, and
drinking water.
“For God’s sake
help us out,” said Qadir, 35, who was camped out with his extended family on a
road near the southern city of Sukkur.
“We walked along
the road for three days to reach here. There’s nothing left back at home, we
only managed to save our lives.”
In the country’s
south and west, many Pakistanis have crammed onto elevated highways and
railroad tracks to escape the flooded plains.
“We don’t even have
space to cook food. We need help,” Rimsha Bibi, a schoolgirl in Dera Ghazi Khan
in central Pakistan, told AFP.
Pakistan receives
heavy — often destructive — rains during its annual monsoon season, which are
crucial for agriculture and water supplies.
But such intense
downpours have not been seen for three decades.
Pakistani officials
have blamed climate change, which is increasing the frequency and intensity of
extreme weather around the world.
‘Mind-boggling devastation’
“To see the devastation on
the ground is really mind-boggling,” Pakistan’s climate change minister Sherry
Rehman told AFP.
“When we send in water pumps, they say, ‘Where do we
pump the water?’ It’s all one big ocean, there’s no dry land to pump the water
out.”
She said “literally a third” of the country was
under water, comparing scenes from the disaster to a dystopian movie.
Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said Pakistan needed
more than $10 billion to repair and rebuild damaged infrastructure.
“Massive damage has been caused ... especially in
the areas of telecommunications, roads, agriculture, and livelihoods,” he told
AFP Tuesday.
The Indus River, which runs the length of the
South Asian nation, is threatening to burst its banks as torrents of water rush
downstream from its tributaries in the north.
Pakistan as a whole has been deluged with twice the
usual monsoon rainfall, the meteorological office said, but Balochistan and
Sindh provinces have seen more than four times the average of the last three
decades.
International help
The disaster could not have
come at a worse time for Pakistan, where the economy is in free fall.
Appealing for international help, the government has
declared an emergency.
Aid flights have arrived in recent days from
Turkey and the UAE, while other nations including Canada, Australia, and Japan have
also pledged assistance.
The UN has announced it will launch a formal $160
million appeal on Tuesday to fund emergency aid.
“Pakistan is awash in suffering. The Pakistani
people are facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal
levels of rain and flooding,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a
video statement, calling it a “colossal crisis”.
Pakistan was already desperate for international
support and the floods have compounded the challenge.
Prices of basic goods — particularly onions,
tomatoes, and chickpeas — are soaring as vendors bemoan a lack of supplies from
the flooded breadbasket provinces of Sindh and Punjab.
There was some relief on Monday when the
International Monetary Fund approved the revival of a loan program for
Pakistan, releasing an initial $1.1 billion.
Makeshift relief camps have sprung up all over
Pakistan — in schools, on motorways and in military bases.
In the northwestern town of Nowshera, a technical college
was turned into a shelter for up to 2,500 flood victims.
They sweltered in the summer heat with sporadic food
aid and little access to water.
“I never thought that one day we will have to live
like this,” said 60-year-old Malang Jan.
“We have lost our heaven and are now forced to live
a miserable life.”
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