KARACHI: The death toll from the floods has risen to 1,545 as 37 more people, including 18 children, died in flood-related incidents in the last three days, official statistics showed on Monday.
A total of 678 people have died in Sindh since June 14, followed by 306 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and 299 in Balochistan, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
It said 191 people have lost their lives in Punjab, 48 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and 22 in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region. There were 552 children and 315 women among the 1,545 fatalities, the NDMA data showed.
A total of 12,860 people have been injured in the rain and flood-related incidents across the country.
Property damage is also increasing, with over 1.95 million houses damaged, including 782,274 completely destroyed, and 959,819 livestock killed, according to the authority.
Monsoon season in Pakistan, like in other countries in the region, usually results in heavy rains, but this year has been the wettest since 1961.
Currently, one-third of the country is underwater as the massive rains and melting glaciers have caused the nation’s main Indus River to overflow, inundating vast swaths of plains, and farms.
Destructive rains and floods have also washed away 12,716 kilometres (7,901 miles) of roads, 374 bridges and buildings across the country already grappling with political and economic turmoil.
Over 33 million of the 220 million population have been affected by the raging floods, causing a staggering loss of over $30 billion in damages to an already weakened infrastructure.
Almost 45 percent of the country’s cropland has already been inundated by the floods, posing a serious threat to food security and further adding to the already skyrocketing inflation.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are also dealing with outbreaks of waterborne skin and eye diseases, with health experts warning of a higher number of deaths from diarrhoea, gastrointestinal, typhoid, malaria, dengue, and other infections than from rains and floods.
So far, Pakistan has received 113 flights of humanitarian aid from Turkey, the UAE, China, the US, the UK, Uzbekistan, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, Nepal, Turkmenistan, UNICEF, UNHCR, and the World Food Programme.
Meanwhile, two Turkish relief goods trains also arrived in Pakistan through Iran while eight more trains will arrive in the next few days.
Last week, Turkey also sent 3,100 tents, 6,870 blankets, 2,864 food packages, clothes, and flour, through a train while so far 13 aid flights have arrived in Pakistan.
