‘Doomsday’ Scenario In Pakistan As Monsoon Leaves One-Third Of The Country Underwater & Over 1,000 Dead
NBC NEWS The United Nations issued a flash appeal Tuesday for emergency funds, urging the world to give the South Asian nation its attention and aid.
On Tuesday, the United Nations issued a flash appeal for emergency funds, urging the world to give the South Asian nation its attention and aid.
“It was not less than a doomsday for us,” said Asghar Ali, a 56-year-old farmer who was forced to leave his home in the northern town of Charsadda on Friday.
Thousands of people just didn’t have time to shift precious households to safe places,” said Ali, who now lives with his livestock in a makeshift shelter alongside the Islamabad-Peshawar motorway.
“We saved our lives but the houses filled with floodwater. Life here on the motorway is a curse,” he added.
Pakistan’s government has said that more than 33 million people, around 15 % of the population, have been affected by the extreme weather.
The extreme floods have killed more than 1,136 people since June, including 386 children, and damaged a million homes, Pakistan’s government said.
Although rains stopped three days ago and floodwaters in some areas were receding, large areas remain submerged and the country’s main rivers, the Indus and the Swat, are still swollen.
The heavy floods have left a third of the country — an area the size of Wyoming — underwater, according to Climate Minister Sherry Rehman. She has called this “the monster monsoon of the decade” and described the situation as a “climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions
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