KARACHI: Hundreds of villages across Pakistan are now underwater. More than 1,300 people have died as a result of the flooding, the majority of them women and children, with a further 33 million people affected by the rising waters.
Rescuers in Sindh are trying to help locals still stuck in towns in the southern district of Dadu. The boats fill up fast with people seeking refuge.
“This is the fifth day we’ve been rescuing people here, taking them to safe places,” rescuer Salman Naseer explained as his motor boat powered down what used to be a busy market on the main highway. He is worried because the water keeps on rising.
“We never imagined that there could be this much water,” said local Naweed Ali. “Initially, there was rain and the city got waterlogged and then came the river floods.”
Most families have been evacuated but many locals are afraid that the belongings they left behind will be looted. Some men are still staying in their houses to protect their families’ possessions because, Ali explained, “in the night thieves come on boats and they steal from abandoned houses”.
People living in villages near Lake Manchar have been told to evacuate. Many of them are afraid. “When we look at the water level and the floodgate our hearts stop,” lamented a man from one of the surrounding villages.
“This is not water — this is a bomb waiting to explode.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called the flooding “the worst in the history of Pakistan”, adding it would cost at least $10 billion to repair damaged infrastructure spread across the country.
The rains that began in June have unleashed powerful floods across the country that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.
