Over 1,000 Pakistani citizens are dead due to flooding that has left up to one-third of the nation underwater, a crisis experts and the United Nations are blaming on climate change, according to CBS News.
The flooding, which started in mid-June, was exacerbated by higher temperatures that melted many of the country’s 7,532 glaciers at an alarming rate and increased rainfall, said Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and the federal minister for climate change, according to CBS News.
The historic floodwaters have swept away crops, homes, bridges, and vital infrastructure of all kinds, resulting in an estimated $10 billion in damages. Rehman went so far as to claim that the flooding was “the monster monsoon of the decade.”
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“It was not less than a doomsday for us,” Asghar Ali, a 56-year-old farmer whose home was destroyed by the flooding, told NBC News.
“Village after village has been wiped out. Millions of houses have been destroyed,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said earlier this week after surveying the damage in a helicopter, according to the BBC.
Nearly 1 in 7 Pakistanis have been affected by the floods, which are wreaking havoc on a nation already embroiled in an economic and political crisis. As a result of the flooding, Pakistan declared a national emergency on Aug. 26, according to Al Jazeera. Pakistani authorities have also turned to the U.N. and international community for immediate help.
“The situation is likely to deteriorate even further as heavy rains continue over areas already inundated by more than two months of storms and flooding. For us, this is no less than a national emergency,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said, pleading for more countries to contribute to a hastily-assembled U.N. fund, according to CBS News. “Since mid-June, in fact, Pakistan has been battling one of the most severe, totally anomalous cycles of torrential monsoon weather.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has labeled the “monsoon on steroids” one of the latest disasters to be caused by climate change.
The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids. More than 1000 people have been killed – with millions more lives shattered.
This colossal crisis requires urgent, collective action to help the Government & people of Pakistan in their hour of need. pic.twitter.com/aVFFy4Irwa
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) August 30, 2022
“Let’s stop sleepwalking toward the destruction of our planet by climate change,” Guterres said. “Today, it’s Pakistan. Tomorrow, it could be your country.”
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The International Monetary Fund announced yesterday that it released $1.1 billion to Pakistan ahead of schedule in order to try and keep the southwestern Asian nation afloat, according to Reuters.
