Victims of the unprecedented flooding from monsoon rains use makeshift barge to carry hay for cattle, in Jaffarabad, a district of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province on Sept. 5.Fareed Khan/The Associated Press
Pakistani authorities are struggling to prevent the country’s biggest lake bursting its banks and inundating nearby towns after unprecedented flooding, while the disaster management agency on Monday added further 24 fatalities to its death toll.
Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in Pakistan’s northern mountains have brought floods that have affected 33 million people and killed at least 1,314, including 458 children, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency said.
The floods have followed record-breaking summer temperatures and the government and the United Nations have both blamed climate change for the extreme weather and the devastation it has brought.
Authorities on Sunday breached Pakistan’s largest freshwater lake, displacing up to 100,000 people from their homes in the hope of draining enough water to stop the lake bursting its banks and swamping more densely populated areas.
But water levels in the lake, to the west of the Indus river in the southern province of Sindh, remain dangerously high.
“The water level at Manchar lake has not come down,” Jam Khan Shoro, the Provincial Minister for Irrigation told Reuters.
He declined to say if another attempt to drain water from the lake would be made.
The floods have led to a growing humanitarian crisis, with officials especially concerned about the well-being of pregnant women and young mothers.
Over 400,000 pregnant women in badly affected Sindh province have been displaced by the floods, with only 891 making it to relief camps, according to data from the provincial government released on Friday.
The relief effort is a huge burden for an economy already needing help from the International Monetary Fund.
A delegation of three U.S. lawmakers, who visited the flood-hit areas on Sunday to assess the damage and explore ways of assisting Pakistan in its recovery efforts, met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday, his office said.
Mr. Sharif told the lawmakers that given the challenges and enormous resources involved in the reconstruction efforts, “continued support, solidarity and assistance from the international community was critical,” the office said.
The United Nations has called for US$160-million in aid to help the flood victims but Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said the damage was far higher.
“The total damage is close to $10-billion, perhaps more,” Mr. Ismail said in an interview with CNBC.
“Clearly it is not enough. In spite of meagre resources Pakistan will have to do much of the heavy lifting.”
Nevertheless, help kept pouring in with the Foreign Ministry reporting arrivals of relief flights on Monday from the United Nations and individual countries, including Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.
Elsewhere in the region, floods are also threatening crisis-hit Sri Lanka, while rains have disrupted life in India’s technology hub, Bengaluru.
The northern summer is the rainy season across much of Asia.
The UN refugee agency rushed in more desperately needed aid Monday to flood-stricken Pakistan as the nation’s prime minister traveled to the south where rising waters of Lake Manchar pose a new threat.
Two UNHCR planes touched down in the southern port city of Karachi and two more were expected later in the day. A third plane, with aid from Turkmenistan also landed in Karachi. While the floods in recent weeks have touched much of Pakistan, the southern Sindh province, where Karachi is the capital, has been the most affected.
Last week, the United States announced $30 million in aid for Pakistani flood victims. On Monday, two members of Congress, Sheila Jackson Lee and Tom Suzy, met with Pakistani officials and visited some of the stricken areas, the government said.
Also Sunday, UNICEF delivered relief supplies, including medicines and water-purifying tablets, as part of the U.N. flash appeal for $160 million to support Pakistan’s flood response. UNICEF is also appealing for $37 million for children and families.
“The floods have left children and families out in the open with no access to the basic necessities of life,” said Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF’s representative in Pakistan.
Planes carrying aid from other countries are also expected later Monday in response to an appeal from Sharif, who has appealed to the international community to help Pakistan.
With the two UNHCR planes, 38 planes have brought in aid from countries including China, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan.
With files from Associated Press
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