Pakistan flood: Third of country 'under water'; over 1,000 dead | Top 10 updates
In Pakistan's Kyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the Swat Valley was largely cut off from the rest of the country due to damaged infrastructure and flood waters.
As tens of millions of people across swathes of Pakistan are battling the worst monsoon floods in a decade, killing hundreds so far, climate change minister Sherry Rehman on Monday said a third of the country was under water as a result of flooding caused by record monsoon rains. Rehman said the monsoon rains have created a crisis of “unimaginable proportions”.
“It's all one big ocean, there's no dry land to pump the water out,” she told news agency AFP, as the country wrestles with floods that have affected 33 million people.
In Pakistan's northern Kyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the Swat Valley - home to millions of people - was largely cut off from the rest of the country due to damaged infrastructure and flood waters. Local residents said food and medicine was running out and they had little access to power.
Here are top 10 updates on Pakistan floods:
1. As many as 1,061 people have died since June when the seasonal rains began, but the final toll could be higher as hundreds of villages in the mountainous north have been cut off after flood-swollen rivers washed away roads and bridges, news agency AFP reported.
2. This year's flooding has affected more than 33 million people - one in seven Pakistanis - said the National Disaster Management Authority. This year's floods are comparable to those of 2010 - the worst on record - when more than 2,000 people died.
3. Flood victims have taken refuge in makeshift camps that have sprung up across the country, where desperation is setting in. "Living here is miserable. Our self-respect is at stake," said Fazal e Malik, sheltering on the grounds of a school now home to around 2,500 people in the town of Nowshera in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
4. Millions of acres of rich farmland have been flooded by weeks of non-stop rain, but now the Indus is threatening to burst its banks as torrents of water course downstream from tributaries in the north.
5. Chief Minister of Balochistan Mir Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo said the province had suffered more than 200 billion Pakistani rupees ($900 million) worth of damage from the more than two months of flooding.
6. Pakistan's foreign minister said the country needs financial help to deal with “overwhelming” floods, adding that he hoped financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund would take the economic fallout into account.
7. On Monday, the IMF executive board was scheduled to meet to decide whether to green-light the resumption of a $6 billion loan programme essential for the country to service its foreign debt, but it is already clear it will take more to repair and rebuild after this monsoon.
8. Britain's Queen Elizabeth said in a message of support to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif: "My thoughts are with all those who have been affected, as well as those working in difficult circumstances to support the recovery efforts."
9. The government has declared an emergency and appealed for international help, and on Sunday the first aid flights began arriving - from Turkey and the UAE. It could not have come at a worse time for Pakistan, where the economy is in free fall.
10. Prices of basic goods - particularly onions, tomatoes and chickpeas - are soaring as vendors bemoan a lack of supplies from the flooded breadbasket provinces of Sindh and Punjab.
(With inputs from AFP, Reuters)