Tens of millions of Pakistanis were battling the worst monsoon rains in three decades on Monday, which killed at least 1,136 people, swept away countless homes and destroyed vital farmland.
A third of Pakistan is currently “under water”, Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said in an interview with AFP, referring to a “crisis of unimaginable proportions”.
The monsoon rains, which began in June, are “unprecedented for 30 years”, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Monday as he toured the affected northern regions.
A huge relief operation was underway in Pakistan, where international aid was slowly beginning to arrive. Meanwhile, the Indus, the country’s main river, threatened to burst its banks.
Pakistani officials attribute the devastating weather to climate change, saying their country is suffering the consequences of irresponsible environmental practices elsewhere in the world.
More than 33 million people, or one in seven Pakistanis, have been affected by the floods and nearly a million homes have been destroyed or severely damaged, the government said.
According to the latest report dated Monday from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the monsoon has claimed at least 1,136 lives since it began in June, including 75 in the past 24 hours.
But the authorities were still trying to reach isolated villages located in northern mountainous areas, which could further increase the toll.
“It’s all just one big ocean, there’s no dry place to pump the water from,” Rehman said, adding that the economic cost, which has yet to be quantified, would be devastating.
The monsoon, which usually lasts from June to September, is essential for the irrigation of plantations and the replenishment of water resources in the Indian subcontinent. But it also brings its share of drama and destruction each year.
The consequences of climate change
According to Ms. Rehman, the weather is even worse than that of 2010, when 2,000 people were killed and almost a fifth of Pakistan was submerged by monsoon rains.
People displaced by the floods have found shelter in hastily established makeshift camps across Pakistan.
“Life here is miserable. Our self-respect is at stake,” Fazal e Malik, housed with around 2,500 other people on the grounds of a school in Nowshera, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (northwest), told AFP.
“I stink, but there is no place to take a shower. There are no ventilators,” he added.
Pakistan received twice as much rainfall as usual, according to the state weather service. In the southern provinces (Balochistan and Sind), the most affected, the rains were more than four times higher than the average of the last 30 years.
Near Sukkur in Sindh, where a massive colonial-era dam on the Indus River is vital to preventing the disaster from getting worse, a farmer lamented seeing his rice fields lost.
“Our plantations extended over 2,000 hectares, on which the best quality rice was sown and eaten by you and us,” Khalil Ahmed, 70, told AFP. “It’s all over. »
The head of the dam assured that the bulk of the water flowing from the north of the country by the river should reach the work around September 5, but said he was confident in its ability to withstand the shock.
The dam diverts the waters of the Indus to thousands of kilometers of canals which constitute one of the largest irrigation networks in the world. But the farms thus served are now completely flooded.
Even worse with the economy in crisis
The NDMA claimed that more than 80,000 hectares of cultivable land had been ravaged, as well as more than 3,400 kilometers of roads and 157 bridges, washed away by the waters.
The water is hampering relief operations under the supervision of the Pakistani army.
The government has declared a state of emergency and called for help from the international community. On Sunday, the first planes bringing humanitarian aid arrived, from Turkey or the United Arab Emirates.
These floods come at the worst time for Pakistan, whose economy was already in crisis.
The International Monetary Fund was to meet Monday in Washington to agree to the resumption of a six billion US dollar loan program, essential for this country. But it is already clear that Pakistan will need much more to rebuild the infrastructure destroyed by the floods.
Staple food prices are skyrocketing and supply problems are already being felt in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab.