People make their way through a flooded area following heavy rains in Karachi, Pakistan on 24 August 2022. Photo: Shahzaib Akber / EPA 24 August 2022.
People make their way through a flooded area following heavy rains in Karachi, Pakistan on 24 August 2022. Photo: Shahzaib Akber / EPA 24 August 2022.

By Syed Raza Hassan and Asif Shahzad
5 September 2022

ISLAMABAD/KARACHI (Reuters) – Pakistani authorities are struggling to prevent the country’s biggest lake bursting its banks and inundating nearby towns after unprecedented flooding, while the disaster management agency on Monday raised its toll of flood deaths by another 24.

Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in Pakistan’s northern mountains have brought floods that have affected 33 million people and killed at least 1,314, including 458 children, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency said.

The floods have followed record-breaking summer temperatures and the government and the United Nations have both blamed climate change for the extreme weather and the devastation it has brought.

Flood victim family takes refuge with their belongings as floodwater rises, following rains and floods during the monsoon season in Sohbatpur, Pakistan, 4 September 2022. Photo: Amer Hussain / REUTERS
Flood victim family takes refuge with their belongings as floodwater rises, following rains and floods during the monsoon season in Sohbatpur, Pakistan, 4 September 2022. Photo: Amer Hussain / REUTERS

Authorities on Sunday breached Pakistan’s largest freshwater lake, displacing up to 100,000 people from their homes in the hope of draining enough water to stop the lake bursting its banks and swamping more densely populated areas.

But water levels in the lake, to the west of the Indus river in the southern province of Sindh, remain dangerously high.

“The water level at Manchar lake has not come down,” Jam Khan Shoro, the provincial minister for irrigation told Reuters.

He declined to say if another attempt to drain water from the lake would be made.

The floods have led to a growing humanitarian crisis, with officials especially concerned about the wellbeing of pregnant women and young mothers.

Over 400,000 pregnant women in badly affected Sindh province have been displaced by the floods, with only 891 making it to relief camps, according to data from the provincial government released on Friday.

Rescue workers carry out an evacuation operation for stranded people in a flood affected area after heavy monsoon rainfall in Rajanpur district of Punjab province on 25 August 2022. - Figures from the national disaster agency showed on August 25 that 903 people had died in the floods since June, and over 180,000 were forced to flee their rural homes. Photo: Shahid Saeed Mirza / AFP
Rescue workers carry out an evacuation operation for stranded people in a flood affected area after heavy monsoon rainfall in Rajanpur district of Punjab province on 25 August 2022. – Figures from the national disaster agency showed on August 25 that 903 people had died in the floods since June, and over 180,000 were forced to flee their rural homes. Photo: Shahid Saeed Mirza / AFP

The relief effort is a huge burden for an economy already needing help from the International Monetary Fund.

The United Nations has called for $160 million in aid to help the victims of the floods but Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said the cost of the damage was far higher than that.

“The total damage is close to $10 billion, perhaps more,” Ismail said in an interview with CNBC.

“Clearly it is not enough. In spite of meagre resources Pakistan will have to do much of the heavy lifting.”

Nevertheless, help from abroad is arriving.

Relief flights from the United Nations and countries including Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates arrived on Monday, the foreign ministry said in a statement. [More]

Pakistan struggles to avert danger as floods rise, death toll tops 1,300