The country is experiencing the worst monsoon rains for thirty years and deplores more than a thousand deaths.
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The flood. A third of Pakistan is currently “under water” monsoon floods, Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said Monday, August 29, referring to a “crisis of unimaginable proportions”.
“It’s all just one big ocean, there’s no dry place to pump water from”, she said in an interview with AFP. The monsoon rains, which began in June, are “unprecedented for thirty years”Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Monday as he toured the affected areas in the north.
Pakistani officials attribute the devastating weather to climate change, saying Pakistan is suffering the consequences of irresponsible environmental practices elsewhere in the world. Global warming increases the risk of flooding in monsoon regions, warned in their latest report (in English) scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate (IPCC).
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, according to the government. At least 1,130 people have been killed since the start of the monsoon season in June, according to the latest report from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Monday. Countless homes were swept away and vital farmland destroyed.