(ISLAMABAD, Pakistan) – Heavy rains have caused flash floods and wreaked havoc across much of Pakistan since mid-June, leaving another 903 people dead and some 50,000 homeless, the country’s crisis control firm said on Wednesday.
Thousands of others whose homes were razed are now living in tents, miles from their flooded villages and villages, having been rescued by soldiers, local rescue personnel and volunteers.
The National Disaster Management Authority said on Wednesday that another 126 people were killed in flood-related incidents in the past 48 hours, with most of the victims being women and children.
The floods have further exacerbated Pakistan’s economic crisis. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Wednesday launched an appeal from abroad, urging philanthropists to flood-stricken areas in Pakistan.
Sharif is lately in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, where monetary aid, loans and foreign investments arrived for his cash-strapped Islamic nation on Tuesday. His government has promised to compensate those who lost their homes in the floods.
After talks on Wednesday with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Sharif announced that the Qatar Investment Authority was in a position to invest $3 billion in Pakistan. This is Sharif’s first official stop in Qatar as prime minister since replacing Imran Khan, who was ousted in a challenge in parliament in April.
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After flooding much of southwestern Balochistan and the eastern province of Punjab, flash floods have now also begun in South Sindh province. This week, authorities closed schools in Sindh and Balochistan.
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s replacement climate minister, tweeted on Tuesday that the government could not cope on its own and appealed to the global network for help.
Footage on Pakistani television on Wednesday showed other people walking along the water up to their waists, holding their children and wearing must-have pieces on their heads. materials were sent to flood-affected areas.
In some places, the popular Geo TV reported, families have struggled to bury their loved ones, as local cemeteries have also been flooded by flooding.
Monsoon rains, which began in mid-June, were expected to continue this week, basically in the south.
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Murad Ali Shah, the top senior elected official in Sindh province, said the situation is worse than in 2010, when floods killed at least another 1,700 people in Pakistan, most often in Sindh. “We’re doing everything we can to evacuate other people from the flooding. “”Affected areas,” he said tuesday.
The floods shattered up to 129 bridges across Pakistan, disrupting the arrival of fruits and vegetables to markets and leading to rising costs.
Experts say climate replacement has caused erratic weather in Pakistan, leading to rainfall and melting glaciers that have increased rivers. They say restricting emissions of planet-warming greenhouse fuels will restrict the most drastic weather phenomena around the world, adding in this South Asian country.
“In recent decades, we have never witnessed such an intense downpour in Pakistan,” said scientist Shahla Gondal, adding that the government is ill-equipped and “does not know how to cope” with the floods.