18 more people die as floods wreak havoc in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The National Disaster and Management Authority (NDMA) on Wednesday shared that at least 18 more people lost their lives in the last 24 hours from monsoon spell and floods in the country with Sindh province among the worst affected, ARY NEWS reported.

The NDMA report shared that out of 18 deaths, 14 were reported in Sindh, two in Punjab and one each in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “The overall death toll has reached 1,343 while 12,720 people were injured in the flooding,” it said.

It highlighted that during the last 24 hours, 766 kilometers of road network was damaged in Punjab and 78 kilometers in Sindh, bringing the total damage to road infrastructure at 6579 kilometers.

“As many as 5,356 homes were damaged in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of completely damaged infrastructures to 560,789 and partially damaged at 1,132,572,” the report said.

The report while sharing that 81 districts are affected from the recent monsoon rainfall and floods, added that livestock losses have reached 751,145.

The United Nations warned on Tuesday the humanitarian situation in flood-ravaged Pakistan was expected to get worse, a day after establishing an air bridge to deliver aid to victims.

More than 33 million people in Pakistan have been affected by the flooding, brought on by record monsoon rains amplified by climate change.

The UN’s World Health Organization said more than 1,460 health centres had been damaged, of which 432 were fully wrecked, the majority of them in the southeastern province of Sindh.

More than 4,500 medical camps have been set up by the WHO and its partners, while more than 230,000 rapid tests for acute watery diarrhoea, malaria, dengue, hepatitis and chikungunya have been distributed.

Such diseases are already circulating in Pakistan, alongside Covid-19, HIV and polio, and “now all these are at risk of getting worse”, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.