KARACHI: Authorities in Pakistan’s southern Sindh are strengthening embankments and taking precautionary measures whilst bracing for floodwaters to flow downstream from the country’s eastern Punjab province today, Tuesday, where the death toll from heavy rains and deluges have surged to 63.
Sindh’s provincial government has sprung into action over the past few days as floodwaters now race down the Indus basin, fed by Punjab’s three eastern rivers — the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej — which have been swollen by weeks of heavy rains and dam releases in India. As the torrents merge into the Indus, Pakistan’s longest river, the surge is expected to hit Sindh today, Tuesday, threatening towns and farmlands along the river’s southern course before it empties into the Arabian Sea.
The floods have wreaked havoc in the country’s most populous and breadbasket province of Punjab since late August, killing 63 people and affecting over four million others. Punjab’s information minister Azma Bokhari said on Monday that the province has shifted 2.147 million people and 1.55 million animals to safer places since the latest spell of rains and flooding inundated the province’s villages and districts on Aug. 26. According to Punjab officials, 74,786 people are residing in flood relief camps across the province.
