CHARSADDA, Pakistan, (Reuters) – Torrential rains and flooding have submerged a third of Pakistan and killed more than 1,100 people, including 380 children as the United Nations appealed for aid yesterday for what it described as an “unprecedented climate catastrophe.”
Army helicopters plucked stranded families and dropped food packages to inaccessible areas as the historic deluge, triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rains, destroyed homes, businesses, infrastructure and crops, impacting 33 million people, 15% of the 220 million-strong South Asian nation.
The country has received nearly 190% more rain than the 30-year average in the quarter through August this year, totalling 390.7 millimetres (15.38 inches). Sindh province, with a population of 50 million, was hardest hit, getting 466% more rain than the 30-year average.
“One third of the country is literally under water,” Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman told Reuters, describing the scale of the disaster as “a catastrophe of unknown precedent”.
She said the water was not going to recede anytime soon.
At least 380 children were among the dead, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told reporters during a briefing at his office in Islamabad.
“Pakistan is awash in suffering,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video message, as the United Nations launched an appeal for $160 million to help the South Asian nation. “The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids – the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding.”
Guterres will head to Pakistan next week to see the effects of the “unprecedented climate catastrophe,” a U.N. spokesperson said.
He said the scale of the climate disaster commanded the world’s collective attention.
