ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday called for urgent construction of reservoirs and dams as swollen rivers devastated the breadbasket province of Punjab, where at least 15 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands evacuated this week.
The flooding, fueled by record monsoon rains and excess water released from upstream India, has created crisis conditions in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and richest province. Authorities have issued evacuation orders around the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers, where near-record flows of close to one million cusecs have been recorded at barrage points.
The Punjab government called in the army this week to support rescue and relief operations. State TV said about 248,000 people had been evacuated from vulnerable areas, while more than 1,400 villages and small settlements were submerged. The NDMA has also warned the southern Sindh province to prepare for rising Indus flows in the coming days.
Since June 26, torrential monsoon rains linked to climate change have killed nearly 820 people and injured more than 1,100 across Pakistan, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
“Most importantly, we have to build the capacity for water storage. If there is storage, there will be a shortage of flash floods. Cascading will also be controlled,” Sharif said in televised comments on Thursday.
