The global response to the flooding
Long-term action is necessary to protect communities that are currently displaced and struggling in areas that remain vulnerable to further flooding. Given the number of people affected, an urgently increased response from humanitarian groups and others is required.
Flood is the most common natural disaster in Pakistan. Whether or not a lake, river or ocean is actually in sight, everyone is at risk of being affected by flooding. Flash floods, tropical storms, urbanization, and infrastructure failures like levees and levees all play a role — costing millions (and sometimes billions) of dollars in Pakistan.
A heartbreaking story of loss and resilience
“It’s not about numbers, it’s about people, about farmers who lost their crops, about those who lost their families, about those whose homes were destroyed, about those who lost their livestock, about those who didn’t have the money to pay them to grow loans,” an anonymous official said.
I heard an incredible story about bravery that stuck in my mind. A group of people escaped floodwaters onto the roof of a house in the middle of the night. From there, they could hear a young girl screaming from a nearby house. So they tied a rope around a man’s waist and put him in the whirlpool. He then went to the girl’s house and took her to safety.
Millions of people impacted by the floods
Floods from torrential rains inundated rivers, canals, and lakes; razed entire villages; flooded highways; destroyed millions of acres of crops; and left millions homeless. We ran out of adjectives to describe rain: unprecedented, uninterrupted, epic, biblical, apocalyptic. We’ve run out of understandable numbers to document the plight: 15 inches of rain in a day; 44,000 square miles of land flooded; two fathoms of water over cities, homes and schools; nearly 1,700 dead; about 33 million affected . And now, after a brief international attention, our attention is running out.
Floods triggered by monsoon rains caused by climate change have affected 33 million people across the country and killed more than 1,700. The floods washed away at least 800,000 homes, killed 1.2 million important livestock and inundated 9.4 million acres of farmland, according to Pakistani and UN officials.