A previous attempt to drain the lake has failed and floodwater levels are still dangerously high.
Pakistani authorities are struggling to prevent the shores of the country’s largest lake from breaking after recent attempts to lower water levels have failed.
Lake Manchar in Sindh province is dangerously full after record monsoons flooded a third of Pakistan’s landmass.
Three open wings on the shore of the lake – to protect the downstream areas – have displaced more than 100,000 people.
But the lake may still overflow, and rescuers are rushing to evacuate more people at risk of drowning.
According to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency, the flooding affected an estimated 33 million people and killed at least 1,314 people, including 458 children.
Estimates suggest that the floods caused at least US$10 billion (R$52.3 billion) in damage.
The state of Sindh produces half the country’s food, raising fears that many will face severe food shortages in a country that is already in a severe economic crisis.
Image: EPA
On Sunday, authorities conducted a response to Lake Manchar that caused two rural towns to flood. The purpose of public power is to prevent it from further breaking up its banks and flooding more densely populated areas.
The movement affected about 400 villages – a total of 135,000 people. The decision to deliberately flood some areas is controversial. The lake is spread over two regions, Dadu and Jamshoro, both of which are home to hundreds of thousands of people and about 80% of the area is underwater.
Residents affected by the controlled outage have been advised to leave the area. But local sources say not all of them were evacuated on time – some didn’t want to leave their homes or abandon their animals.
The army is called in to help with the evacuation, but mostly the locals help each other and persuade each other to go.
Some of those who had fled their homes in the last few days before the Manchar eruption were taken to a nearby government-run facility. The site is used as a shelter, but the conditions leave much to be desired.
Many homeless live by the roadside without food and clean water.
“We have nothing here. We try to find food for our children all day, some nights we sleep without food,” one woman told the BBC.
“We’re afraid the roof will collapse on us – it’s damaged,” said another villager. “Our children are getting sick and we are sleeping on the floor – there are no beds for most of us.”
Image: EPA
More than 250,000 people, some of the 33 million Pakistanis affected, are in shelters, officials said. Relief efforts fail to meet demand – too much need and too few resources.
Damaged infrastructure is also hampering relief and rescue operations. Some connecting roads in Sindh state collapsed, flooded or were blocked for days due to heavy traffic queues.
Pakistan is facing one of the worst natural disasters in years, as record heavy rains and melting glaciers in the country’s northern mountains caused devastating flooding and inundated nearly a third of its land.
Meanwhile, UN children’s fund Unicef said more children in Pakistan are at risk of dying due to shortages of clean water.
The disaster also highlighted the great disparity between countries that are the biggest contributors to climate change and those that bear the weight of its impact.
Pakistan produces less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but its geography makes it extremely vulnerable to climate change.
Text in collaboration with Zubaidah AbdulJalil
source: Noticias
