JAMSHORO: As the United Nations warned of more misery to come, Pakistan scrambled on Tuesday to widen a breach in its biggest lake in a bid to prevent it from overflowing amid unprecedented floods that have inundated a third of the South Asian nation.
Flooding, brought by record monsoon rainfall and glacier melt in the north, has impacted 33 million people and killed at least 1,325, including 466 children, the national disaster agency said.
About 636,940 displaced people have been housed in tent villages, it said, adding the raging waters had swept away 1.6 million houses, roads, rail and telecommunication systems, and inundated over two million acre of farmland, destroying both standing and stored crops.
Reuters’ drone footage over Sindh province showed agricultural and residential areas completely submerged in water, with just the tops of trees and buildings visible.
Rice fields resembled massive lakes of several miles in diameter, according to aerial video footage by the Pakistani military.
Flood-hit Pakistan battles to avert overflow of biggest lake
Officials have estimated economic cost of the losses minimum at $10 billion.
With more rain expected in the coming month, the situation could worsen, a top official of the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) warned.
“We fear the situation could deteriorate,” said Indrika Ratwatte, the agency’s director for Asia and the Pacific.
“This will increase challenges for flood survivors, and likely worsen conditions for nearly half a million displaced people, forcing more to abandon their homes.”
A key concern was country’s largest Manchar freshwater lake, in Sindh province, which was close to bursting its banks.
“We have widened the earlier breach at Manchar to reduce the rising water level,” provincial irrigation minister Jam Khan Shoro told Reuters on Monday.
Already, 100,000 people have been displaced in efforts to keep the lake from overflowing, and if it breaches its banks, it could affect hundreds of thousands more, authorities said.
The region already faces the dangers of water-borne and skin diseases, dengue fever, snake bites and breathing issues, Azra Fazal Pechuho, health minister for the southern province, told a news briefing.
She said 856,000 patients had been treated since flooding began in July, mostly from field and mobile hospitals.
“Over 1200 of our health facilities are under water,” she said, adding the field hospitals were receiving nearly 20,000 diarrhoea and 16,000 malaria cases daily. The World Health Organization has said over 6.4 million people need humanitarian support in the flooded areas.
To help the medicine stocks, Pechuho said, the UNHCR’s aid has arrived.