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Islamabad [Pakistan]Sept. 3 (ANI): More than a third of Pakistan is underwater in the worst flooding in history, according to European Space Agency (ESA) satellite imagery.
As deadly flooding threatens to cause a secondary disaster, food supplies are running short after water covered millions of acres of crops and wiped out hundreds of thousands of livestock, CNN reported.
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Heavy monsoon rains – 10 times heavier than usual – caused the Indus River to overflow, effectively creating a long lake tens of kilometers wide, according to ESA images from August 30.
Pakistan is facing a double food and health crisis from unprecedented floods.
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According to CNN, the country’s 27 million people didn’t get enough food before the floods, according to anti-hunger charities, and the risk of widespread starvation is now more looming.
“As water levels continue to rise, our priority now is to help save and protect lives. The scale of these floods has caused appalling damage – crops have been washed away and livestock have been killed across large swathes of the country, which means Hunger will follow,” said Saleh Saeed, chief executive of the UK-based Aid Alliance Disaster Response Committee.
Prime Minister Sharif said on August 30 that people are facing food shortages and that prices of basic commodities such as tomatoes and onions have “snap”.
“I have to feed my people. Their stomachs cannot be empty,” Sharif said.
The World Health Organization has also classified Pakistan’s worst floods on record as a “highest-level” emergency, warning of a rapid spread of the disease due to a lack of medical assistance.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned of new outbreaks of diarrheal diseases, skin infections, respiratory infections, malaria and dengue fever after the floods, while a range of waterborne diseases also pose a health threat.
At the same time, aid agencies have warned of a rise in infectious diseases, leaving millions vulnerable to a disease caused by what the United Nations calls a “steroid monsoon”.
According to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), more than 1,100 people have died in the floods since mid-June, nearly 400 of them children, and millions have been displaced.
Pakistan, already grappling with political and economic turmoil, has been pushed to the front line of a man-made climate crisis.
Pakistan’s monsoon season typically brings downpours, but this year is the wettest since records began in 1961, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department
In the southern provinces of Sindh and Balochistan, rainfall was 500 percent above average as of August 30, flooding entire villages and farmlands, destroying buildings and destroying crops, according to the NDMA.
According to EU data, Pakistan emits less than 1% of global warming gases, but it ranks eighth among the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis according to the Global Climate Risk Index.
As the climate crisis exacerbates extreme weather events, the South Asian country has faced enormous climatic conditions this year, from record heatwaves to devastating floods, which have taken a heavy toll, according to CNN.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the world is “sleepwalking” on environmental damage.
“South Asia is one of the world’s hotspots for the global climate crisis. People living in these hotspots are 15 times more likely to die from climate impacts,” Guterres said.
“As we continue to see more and more extreme weather events around the world, climate action is on the back burner as global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, making all of us – wherever – growing, It’s outrageous. Dangerous,” he added.
Pakistan also has more glaciers than anywhere else outside the polar regions. But as the climate warms, it becomes more susceptible to sudden bursts of glacial water.
Pakistani Prime Minister Sheikh Baz Sharif said the floods were “the worst in the country’s history” and estimated the disaster caused more than $10 billion in damage to infrastructure, homes and farms.
More than 33 million people, or about 15 percent of the population, are affected, according to Pakistan’s climate change minister Sherry Rehman. According to the NDMA, more than 1 million homes were damaged or destroyed, while at least 5,000 kilometers of roads were damaged.
Flooding has affected 2 million acres of crops in Pakistan and killed more than 794,000 livestock, according to a situation report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
According to WHO, more than 800 health facilities in the country were damaged, 180 of which were completely damaged, as reported in many affected areas, leaving millions without access to health care and medical services. (ANI)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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