High-level flood in Kotri Barrage as death toll rises to 1,290

KARACHI: After causing widespread devastations in Dadu district and other areas of flood-hit Sindh, a high flood of 513,000 cusecs was passing through Kotri Barrage, ARY News reported on Saturday.

According to a Flood Forecasting Division report, a high-level flood of 513,00 cusecs was passing through Sukkur Barrage at 6pm today and the water level is expected to rise further by tomorrow.

At Kotri Barrage water inflow has been 5,13,669 cusecs and outflow measured 5,03,464 cusecs, the barrage official told ARY News.

Hundreds of villages near Jamshoro, Kotri have been submerged in river flooding and standing paddy crops on hundreds of acres has drowned in the water.

People in large numbers have started shifting to safe places from their villages in the katcha areas along the left and right banks of the Indus Rver following proclamation of a high-flood warning at Kotri Barrage.

Meanwhile, Indus river has been in high flood at Guddu Barrage with the water inflow and outflow measured 5,53,183 cusecs. The river has also been in high flood at Sukkur Barrage with the water inflow and outflow measured 5,59,998 cusecs.

Several villages in katcha area of Sukkur, Ghotki and Shikarpur districts have submerged under the river water.

he toll from cataclysmic floods in Pakistan continued to climb on Saturday with 57 more deaths, 25 of them children, as the country grapples with a relief and rescue operation of near unprecedented scale.

A high-level body set up to coordinate the relief effort met in Islamabad on Saturday for the first time, chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, to take stock of the disaster.

Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in northern mountains brought floods that have affected 33 million people and killed at least 1,265 people, including 441 children. The inundation, blamed on climate change, is still spreading.

“The year 2022 brought some harsh realities of climate change for Pakistan,” the chief of the National Disaster Management Authority Lieutenant-General Akhtar Nawaz told a briefing for the country’s top leadership.

Initial estimates of the damage have been put at $10 billion, but surveys are still being conducted along with international organisations.

The United Nations has appealed for $160 million in aid to help tackle what it said was an “unprecedented climate catastrophe” as Pakistan’s navy has fanned out inland to carry out relief operations in areas that resemble a sea.