The government says more than 10,000 million euros will be needed to restore the infrastructures
Relief efforts in Pakistan stepped up on Tuesday to try to help the tens of millions of people affected by the worst monsoon rains in three decades, which swept a third of the country, killed at least 1,136 people and caused millions of dollars in damage.
Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal estimated infrastructure losses at more than 10,000 million euros. “Huge damage has been done, especially in telecommunications, roads, agriculture and livelihoods,” he said. The rains started in June and have caused deadly flooding, destroyed crops essential to the survival of the population and destroyed more than a million homes.
Authorities and humanitarian organizations are trying to speed up relief work for the more than 33 million affected people, one in seven Pakistanis, but the task has been complicated by the damage to roads and bridges. The UN and the government, which declared a state of emergency, made an official call on Tuesday for 160 million euros to finance emergency aid.
In the south and west of the country, there is hardly any dry land left, and displaced persons have to take refuge on causeways and railways to escape the floodplain. “We don’t even have room to cook food. We need help,” Rimsha Bibi, a schoolgirl in Dera Ghazi Khan, central Pakistan, told AFP.
The monsoon, which usually lasts from June to September, is essential for irrigating crops and replenishing water resources in the Indian subcontinent. It also has its share of tragedy and destruction every year, although it has been three decades since the country has seen such intense rainfall.
Pakistani authorities attribute these devastating rains to climate change and claim the country is being impacted by irresponsible environmental practices in other parts of the world.
The monsoon rains that started in June are “unmatched in 30 years,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said as he traveled through the affected areas to the north. A third of Pakistan is currently “under water,” Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman told AFP on Monday, citing a “crisis of unimaginable proportions”.
The balance may increase as authorities are still trying to reach the remote mountainous areas in the north. And to the south, the Indus River, the most important in the country, threatens to overflow its banks.
According to the weather service, Pakistan received double the normal rainfall. In the worst hit southern provinces of Balochistan and Sindh, rains fell four times higher than the average for the past 30 years. The floods come at the worst time for Pakistan, where the economy is facing a serious crisis.
Source: La Verdad
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