No let-up in rain, flood havoc as death toll tops 900

ISLAMABAD: In a sad incident, five school going children were swept away in flash floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) Upper Dir city while returning from school on Wednesday. According to sources, bodies of four children were recovered by the locals, whereas, the fifth body was pulled out by the rescue team.

The incident follows record monsoon rains that are causing a “catastrophe of epic scale”, the climate change minister Sherry Rehman said Wednesday, announcing an international appeal for help in dealing with floods that have killed more than 800 people since June.

“It has been raining for a month now. There is nothing left,” a woman named Khanzadi told AFP in badly hit Jaffarabad, Balochistan province. “We had only one goat, that too drowned in the flood... Now we have nothing with us and we are lying along the road and facing hunger.”

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed the authorities to expedite rescue and relief operations in flood-affected areas, considering prediction of more rains in those areas. He directed the National Disaster Management Authority and all the relevant ministries and departments to collaborate with one another as consecutive rain spells were deteriorating the flood-caused destruction. He said as the flash floods had inflicted huge losses on the people, it was the nation s responsibility to support their countrymen. Rehabilitation in calamity-hit areas is a gigantic task. This is possible only through collective efforts,” the prime minister said and requested the local and international charity organisations to extend their support for the rehabilitation of the affected population.

Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Minister Ahsan Iqbal, in a press conference, said that the federal government has also appealed to the international development partners for assistance, so the reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed by the flooding can be started once the water recedes.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said authorities would launch an appeal for international help once an assessment was complete. “Given the scale of the disaster there is no question of the provinces, or even Islamabad, being able to cope with this magnitude of climate catastrophe on their own,” she told AFP. “Lives are at risk, thousands homeless. It is important that international partners mobilise assistance.”

Pakistan is eighth on a list of countries deemed most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change, according to the Global Climate Risk Index compiled by environmental NGO Germanwatch.

Earlier this year much of the nation was in the grip of a heatwave, with temperatures hitting 51 degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit) in Jacobabad, Sindh province. The city is now grappling with floods that have inundated homes and swept away roads and bridges.

In Sukkur, about 75 kilometres away, volunteers were using boats along the flooded streets of the city to distribute food and fresh water to people trapped in their homes. Zaheer Ahmad Babar, a senior met office official, told AFP that this year’s rains were the heaviest since 2010, when over 2,000 people died and more than two million were displaced by monsoon floods that covered nearly a fifth of the country.

Rainfall in Balochistan province was 430 percent higher than normal, he said, while Sindh was nearing 500 percent. The town of Padidan in Sindh had received over a metre (39 inches) of rain since August 1, he added. “It is a climate catastrophe of epic scale,” Rehman said, adding three million people had been affected.

The National Disaster Management Authority said in a statement that nearly 125,000 homes had been destroyed and 288,000 more were damaged by the floods. Some 700,000 livestock in Sindh and Balochistan had been killed, and nearly two million acres of farmland destroyed, officials added. Nearly 3,000 kilometres of roads had also been damaged.

Both Sindh and Balochistan have suffered the worst in the current season of monsoon from mid-June which has wreaked havoc across the country. The two provinces reported 903 deaths, including 326 children. The Nawabshah Airport has suspended flight operations after its runway came under water. Balochistan was cut off from KPK, Sindh and Balochistan. Hill torrents have devastated DG Khan and raised flood levels in Taunsa and downstream Guddu.

Emergency has been enforced in four districts of DI Khan following breaches in embankments in Rahim Yar Khan along Indus. Dozens of villages and adjacent fields have been severely flooded. Like the rest of the country, most parts of Sindh, including Khairpur, Sukkur, Jacobabad, Ghotki, and Hyderabad, continued to reel under the incessant rains on Wednesday causing life losses, destroying houses, crops and infrastructure, prompting chief minister Sindh to issue a televised appeal to philanthropists to come out and help the rain-affected people, besides setting up a Flood Relief Fund.

In Balochistan, the cumulative infrastructure damages recorded during the massive rains included 710 kilometres of roads and 18 bridges, whereas some 19,400 houses got partially damaged and 7,167 were fully damaged. The massive flooding due to rains killed 500,000 livestock animals. The NDMA added that the N-25 Quetta to Karachi Highway was blocked due to Lunda Bridge that got washed away, which was now open for light traffic as manpower and machinery were deployed for the restoration work.

Almost 34 districts of Balochistan province were affected, 360,000 population impacted whereas 600 persons were rescued, and 7,000 individuals were residing in relief camps.

With over 100mm rainfall in Shaheed Benazirabad, the airport runway was flooded, besides breaches in the Sem Nullah inundated the bridge connecting Badin before washing away dozens of villages. Likewise, the overflowing Karar Lake in Bhit Shah damaged hundreds of villages around Matiari where houses and crops were washed away. Life has also been massively disturbed in low-lying areas of Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin, and Mirpurkhas.

The situation forced Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday to issue a televised appeal to ask the philanthropists to come out and help the rain-affected people of the province who have been enduring a catastrophe caused by unprecedented 600 per cent more rainfall than the usual rains. “These rains have not only flooded the residential areas but have caused a high flood in River Indus,” he said.

According to Pakistan Met Department, Sakrand received the highest rainfall on Wednesday amounting to 119mm from 8am-8pm, followed by 103mm in Shaheed Benazirabad, Padidan 82mm, Khairpur 80mm, Jacobabad 70mm, Hyderabad 50mm, Moenjodaro 51mm, Larkana 46mm and Sanghar 26mm. Bhit Shah continues to remain flooded with water overflowing the Karar Lake. Over 400 mud-thatched houses have been destroyed in Matiari, evicting the people and forcing the people to spend days in makeshift shelters on the nearby highway.

Dozens of houses collapsed in Dadu’s Tehsil of Johi, Mehr, Khairpur Nathan Shah. Life was also massively disturbed in low-lying areas of Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin and Mirpurkhas.

Parts of Khairpur were flooded by two to three feet of water after the floods breached the embankments. The rain in Sukkur left hundreds of villages marooned at UC Mehar Ali in Khairpur Taluka Autery, Kumb city, Mengho Faqir Shar and UC Nasir Faqir Jalalani. The helpless villagers of these areas are awaiting relief work. The DC-led administrative machinery could not either offer any help to the marooned people nor drained water from main arteries. This has prevented people of these union councils from reaching hospitals.

Angry residents of the area surrounded the house of senior PPP leader and Federal Minister for Water Resources Syed Khurshid Shah and agitated for the provision of relief material. The protesters claimed that those forced to live in the relief camps are deprived of food and medicines. They also protested for failure to drain out water from their villages. A total of 58 people have lost their lives and 92 others were reported injured in the Sukkur division due to heavy rainfall and floods in the last two months.

The incessant rainfall and floods have also damaged over 5,000 houses, among them 805 were completely demolished, said Provincial Disaster Management Authority on Wednesday. Most of the deaths were reported from the Khairpur district where 47 people lost their lives, it added. Like other parts of Sindh, rains continued to lash Larkana as well complicating lives for those marooned in far-flung areas of the division and low-lying areas of Larkana city where water accumulated posing difficulties to the residents.

Deputy Commissioner Larkana Tariq Manzoor Chandio said that 90 villages in the district have been destroyed. Following the incessant rains that started in mid-July, hundreds have been confined to their homes without food, medical assistance and other essentials. The DC said as many as 0.9 million people are lodged in the relief camps who need relief.

Heavy rains in and around Hyderabad city for the past 24 hours have paralysed normal life, with water entering houses and shops in several areas. According to the data released by the Meteorological Department, 101mm of rain was recorded in Hyderabad city till Wednesday morning due to which the low-lying areas of the city were inundated. Over 70 per cent area of the city has been affected by rainwater while railways down track was inundated due to which the train schedule had been affected.

The areas affected by rain include most areas of Latifabad, Phuleli, Station Road, Mehr Ali Colony, Qazi Qayoom Road, Pakka Qila, Makki Shah, Liaquat Colony, Pretabad, Noorani Basti and Qasimabad. Meanwhile, the district administration, HDA and municipal authorities have kept all the pumping stations operational for rainwater drainage from the city and its adjoining localities.

Meanwhile, the Government of Sindh has established a Flood Relief Fund for the flood victims in which all the MPs, and cabinet members would deposit their one-month salary. This was announced by Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon. The government officers over grade 17 payscale would deposit their five-day salaries, while those of grade 16 and below would donate their two-day salaries. Memon has also appealed to international donors and the well-off segments of society to step forward and donate generously to the Sindh government’s Flood Relief Fund.

Meanwhile, the United Nations is boosting support to Pakistani authorities dealing with the devastating floods in the most affected provinces of Balochistan and Sindh, a UN spokesman. Responding to a question at the regular noon briefing at UN Headquarters in New York, Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the UN team, led by Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Julien Harneis, has mobilized $7 million to respond to the floods. The spokesman said the UN has provided 1,100 metric tons of food rations, therapeutic feed and nutritional supplements in the affected areas.

It also provided medicine, water purification tablets, tents, mosquito nets, blankets, soaps, hygiene and dignity kits, newborn baby kits, tarpaulins and other goods. “Following a rapid needs assessment, a response plan is being finalized to coordinate the joint response and call for further resources, including from the (UN’s) Central Emergency Response Fund”, Spokesman Dujarric added.

Pakistan has urged the international community and philanthropists to help with relief efforts as it struggles to cope with the aftermath of torrential rains that triggered massive floods, killing more than 900 people.

According to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), heavy monsoon rainfall and floods have affected some 2.3 million people in Pakistan since mid-June, destroying at least 95,350 houses and damaging a further 224,100.

On the other hand, Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Minister Ahsan Iqbal, in a press conference, said that the federal government has also appealed to the international development partners for assistance, so the reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed by the flooding can be started once the water recedes.