ISLAMABAD: At least three million people have been affected by floods across Pakistan and 300,000 remain in tents, according to figures shared at a Senate briefing on Wednesday, underscoring the scale of devastation caused by this year’s monsoon season.
Heavy rains and excess water released from Indian dams caused rivers in Punjab province to swell late last month, inundating more than 4,700 villages in the country’s agricultural heartland, destroying crops and homes and forcing millions to flee.
Since the onset of the monsoon season on June 26, Punjab has reported 296 deaths out of a nationwide toll of 998, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). Other casualties include 504 deaths in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 80 in Sindh, 41 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 38 in Azad Kashmir, 30 in Balochistan and nine in Islamabad.
At a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change, chaired by Senator Sherry Rehman, a former climate minister, participants were told that three million people have been affected by the floods and 300,000 remain in tents.
Rehman urged the government to speed up cash assistance for flood victims through the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), Pakistan’s main social safety net.
