TC Web Desk
The Pakistan government has declared a national emergency as rain-triggered floods have so far killed 937 people, including 343 children, and left at least 30 million homeless. According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Sindh province recorded the highest number of deaths with 306 deaths due to flood and rain-related incidents from June 14 to Thursday.
Balochistan accounted for 234 deaths, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces accounted for 185 and 165 deaths, respectively. The ongoing monsoon rains in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have claimed 37 lives and nine people have died in the Gilgit-Baltistan region.
According to the NDMA, Pakistan received 166.8 mm of rain in August, compared to an average of 48 mm or 241% more. According to the Dawn news report, the worst-affected regions of Sindh and Balochistan have witnessed 784% and 496% of monsoon floods, respectively.
The unusual increase in rainfall has caused flash floods across the country, especially in southern Pakistan, which has currently declared 23 districts of Sindh as disaster-hit, the newspaper said.
Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said on Thursday that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has set up a war room in the NDMA, which will conduct relief operations across the country. She said the incessant rains have made relief work, especially helicopter flights, difficult.
“Pakistan is going through its eighth cycle of monsoon; normally the country has only three to four cycles of (monsoon) rain,” the minister said during a press conference in Islamabad.
“Pakistan is under an unprecedented monsoon spell and data suggests the possibility of re-emergence of another cycle in September,” she was quoted as saying by the daily.
Earlier this year much of the nation was in the grip of a drought and heatwave, with temperatures hitting 51 degrees Celsius in Jacobabad, Sindh province.
