Efforts are stepping up on Tuesday to help the tens of millions of Pakistanis affected by the monsoon rains that have fallen relentlessly since June, which have submerged a third of the country and caused the death of more than 1,100 people.
More than $10 billion (about C$13 billion) will be needed to repair the damage and rebuild infrastructure damaged by the floods, Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal told AFP on Tuesday.
“Massive damage has been caused to infrastructure, particularly in the telecommunications, roads, agriculture and livelihood sectors,” he said.
These rains, “unprecedented for 30 years” according to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, destroyed or seriously damaged more than a million homes and devastated large swaths of agricultural land essential to the country’s economy.
Authorities and aid agencies are struggling to speed up aid to the more than 33 million people, or one in seven Pakistanis, affected by the floods.
The task is difficult, because the waves have washed away a number of roads and bridges, completely isolating certain regions.
In the south and west, there are hardly any dry places left and the displaced have to crowd together on main roads or high railway tracks to escape the flooded plains.
And in the northern mountainous areas, authorities are still trying to reach isolated villages, which could further raise the death toll to 1,136 since the start of the monsoon in June.
The victims wander like ghosts along the rare dry areas in search of shelter, food and drinking water.
“For the love of God, help us,” pleaded Qadir, 35, who is now camping with his family near Sukkur (south), after walking for three days to get there. “There is nothing left in our house, we just managed to save our lives. »
“A Great Ocean”
Pakistani officials attribute the devastating weather to climate change, saying their country is suffering the consequences of irresponsible environmental practices elsewhere in the world.
“To see the devastation on the ground is truly mind-boggling,” Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman told AFP on Monday, referring to a “crisis of unimaginable proportions”.
“Literally a third of Pakistan is under water now,” more than during the 2010 floods when 2,000 people were killed and nearly a fifth of the country was submerged by monsoon rains, she said.
“It’s all just one big ocean, there’s no dry place to pump water from. It has become a crisis of unimaginable proportions,” she added.
The province of Sind (south) is an endless horizon of water and the country’s main river, the Indus, fed by countless streams from the north, threatens to burst its banks.
Pakistan received twice as much rainfall as usual, according to the meteorological service. In the southern provinces (Baluchistan and Sind), the most affected, the rains were more than four times higher than the average of the last thirty years.
makeshift camps
These floods come at the worst time for Pakistan, which had already requested international aid to help its economy in crisis. The government has declared a state of emergency and called on the international community to support it.
He launched an urgent appeal with the United Nations on Tuesday for donations of 160 million dollars (about 208 million Canadian dollars) to finance an emergency plan for the next six months, initially intended to provide basic services ( health, food, drinking water and shelter) to the 5.2 million most affected people.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday gave its agreement to the resumption of a long-negotiated and essential financial support program for the country, and announced the release of an envelope of 1.1 billion dollars.
Staple food prices are skyrocketing — tomatoes and onions rose 40% in a week — and supply problems are already being felt in Sindh and Punjab provinces.
Makeshift camps have sprung up everywhere — in schools, on highways, on military bases, among others — to house displaced people.
In Nowshera, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (north-west), a college has been transformed into a shelter for some 2,500 people, who are struggling to find food and water.
“I never thought I would ever have to live like this,” said Malang Jan, 60, whose house was submerged in water. “We lost our paradise and now we are forced to live a life of misery. »