KARACHI: Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon on Saturday said the provincial government was “fully mobilized” to deal with the impact of floods in southern Pakistan, where nearly 1.6 million people and over 1,600 villages are at risk.
The deluge, fueled by record monsoon rains and excess water released from upstream India, has created crisis conditions in the country’s most populous Punjab province since Monday, where the trans-boundary Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers have submerged about 2,300 villages and killed at least 30 people.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) cautioned a day earlier that rising river waters were likely to cause extreme flooding in downstream Sindh, with flood waves of 900,000 to 1.2 million cusecs expected to flow through barrages in Punjab and Sindh in the coming days.
Addressing a news conference in Karachi, Memon said floodwaters were expected to enter the province “on the night of September 2 or 3.”
“A provincial Rain and Flood Emergency Monitoring Cell has been set up to monitor the flood situation, which will remain operational round the clock,” he said.
