Pakistan is racing to prevent further loss of life as it reels from one of its worst climate disasters with floodwater threatening to cover up to a third of the country of 220 million people by the end of the monsoon season.
The unprecedented amount of rain, according to climate change minister Sherry Rehman, has caused a “climate catastrophe,” with floodwaters engulfing homes, destroying farmland, and uprooting millions of people.
She told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, “We’ve had to deploy the navy for the first time to operate in Indo-Pakistan because much of it resembles a small ocean.”
According to the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), as of Monday, 1,061 people had died since mid-June, raising concerns that the death toll would rise.
Rehman told the Turkish news outlet TRT World on Thursday that Pakistan could very well be under water by the time this is over.
New satellite images released on Monday by Maxar Technologies revealed the extent of the catastrophe, including the cities of Rajanpur and Rojhan in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, as well as homes and fields completely submerged along the Indus River.
In a video made public by the Pakistani Army, troops can be seen staging perilous helicopter rescues of people caught in floodwaters, including one young boy who was stranded on rocks in the middle of a raging river in the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
According to the NDMA’s most recent situation report, rapid flash floods have damaged 495,000 homes, 130 bridges, and more than 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) of road. This makes getting to flooded areas even more challenging.
The monsoon season this year, according to foreign minister Bilawal Butto-Zardari, was “absolutely devastating.”
“I haven’t seen any destruction or devastation of this scale,” said Butto-Zardari. “I find it very difficult to put into words the phraseologies that we are used to, whether it’s monsoon rains or flooding, doesn’t quite seem to encapsulate the ongoing devastation and disaster that we are still witnessing.”
