SEHWAN, PAKISTAN (Reuters) – Parts of Pakistan look like “the sea”, after visiting flood-affected areas that covered a third of the South Asian country, where 18 more deaths have occurred, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday. The death toll from the rain rose to 1,343.
Authorities estimate that about 33 million people, out of a population of 220 million, were affected by a disaster attributed to climate change, which left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and caused at least $10 billion in losses.
“You wouldn’t believe the extent of the devastation there,” Sharif told the media after visiting the southern province of Sindh. “As far as you can see, water is everywhere. It’s like the sea.”
Increasing cash donations to flood victims to Pakistani rupees 70 billion ($313.9 million), the government will purchase 200,000 tents to house displaced families.
The sheriff said retreating from the flood threatened a new challenge in the form of water-borne infectious diseases.
“We will need trillions of rupees to deal with this disaster.”
The United Nations has asked for $160 million in aid for flood victims.
Most of those affected come from Sindh, where Pakistan’s largest lake is dangerously close to overflowing, even though it was opened in an operation that displaced 100,000 people.
National officials said eight children were among the dead in the past 24 hours. The flooding was caused by record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in the mountains of northern Pakistan.
The waters swept 1.6 million homes, 5,735 km of transport links, 750,000 cattle and inundated more than 2 million acres of farmland.
State government spokesman Murtaza Wahab said authorities in Sindh expect the waters to recede in the coming days.
“Our strategy now is to be ready to grow wheat as soon as the waters recede,” he added.
But a senior official from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned that the situation could worsen as more rain is expected next month.
The World Health Organization has already said that more than 6.4 million people in flooded areas need humanitarian support.
Pakistan received almost 190% more rain than the 30-year average, with a total of 391 mm (15.4 inches) in July and August, and Sindh received 466% more rain than the average.
source: Noticias
