Islamabad, Pakistan — Severe swells washed away roads, homes, schools and hospitals across much of Pakistan. Millions of people have been forced from their homes, struggling through waist-deep, fetid waters to reach safe islands. Nearly every crop in the country, thousands of livestock, wheat and fertilizer stores have been affected, warnings of a looming food crisis.
Massive monsoon floods hit Pakistan last week, killing hundreds and displacing tens of millions of people from their homes, adding to more than two months of record flooding, as more water piled up. Governments and international relief organizations have responded urgently. Save People and Critical Infrastructure with What Authorities Call For climate disaster on a grand scale.
Floods now cover about a third of the country, including agricultural areas, and more rain is expected in the coming weeks. Flood damage is likely to be “well above” the initial estimate of about $10 billion, according to his Ahsan Iqbal, the country’s planning minister.
The floods have crippled a country already reeling from an economic crisis and double-digit inflation that has sent prices of basic commodities skyrocketing. Officials have warned that it could set Pakistan back years or decades and fan the flames of political tensions that have engulfed the country since the ouster of former Prime Minister Imran Khan last spring. ing.
Experts warn that the damage to the country’s agricultural sector could also be felt around the world. Pakistan is one of the world’s leading producers and exporters of cotton and rice, devastated by floods. Half of the country’s cotton crop has been destroyed, officials said, hurting global cotton production. Soaring cotton prices As other major producing countries from the US to China are hit by extreme weather.
The floods also threaten to derail Pakistan’s wheat planting season this fall, raising the possibility that food shortages and soaring prices will continue into next year. At a time when global wheat supplies are volatile, this is a worrying prospect for countries that depend on wheat production for their food.
“We are in a very dire situation,” said Rati Parakrishnan, deputy director of Pakistan’s World Food Programme. “There are no buffer stocks of wheat. No seeds have been lost by farmers.”
“If the flood waters do not recede by the October planting season, we will be in trouble,” she added.
Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif’s government, along with the United Nations, has requested $160 million in emergency funding to reach out to the country’s 5.2 million most vulnerable people.
The scale of Pakistan’s devastation is striking even in a year punctuated by extreme weather, including heat waves in Europe and the United States, heavy rains hitting parts of Asia and the worst drought to hit East Africa in decades. increase.
According to the United Nations, more than 1,300 people have died in floods since the monsoon season began in Pakistan this summer, nearly half of them children, and more than 6,000 injured. About 33 million people have been displaced. Flooding now covers about 100,000 square miles (an area larger than the size of the UK), with more flooding expected in the coming weeks.
Sindh, which produces about one-third of the country’s food supply, is one of the rain-hit areas.the state received almost 6 times the average rainfall for 30 years According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the monsoon season damaged about 50% of the state’s crops.
Imdad Hingorja, a 45-year-old farmer, owned a small plot of land and grew cotton in Sanghar, one of the largest cotton-producing areas in Sindh. He said the rains and floods came just as the crops in his fields were ready for harvest.
“I’ve lost everything now. I have five or six feet of water in my field and I don’t know how long it will take to dry,” he said, the only source of income to feed his family of five. is agriculture, said Mr. Hingolja.
Hingolja recently received a loan from relatives to buy new seeds and fertilizer after floods washed away his shop. But if his waist-deep water doesn’t subside by the time it needs to be planted, he doesn’t know what he should do.
“The flood is God’s wrath and we cannot escape it. But who will tell that to a lender who now asks me to pay him back his money?” “Not only will I lose my standing crop, but I will be wasting his entire year of farming.”
In the tank district of the vast northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, floodwaters swept away 35 acres of land that 47-year-old Rahimura Khan was cultivating, destroying all of his rice, maize and sugarcane crops. . He put his annual savings into crops and borrowed about 135,000 Pakistani rupees (about $1,700) for fertilizer.
“There are only two cows left,” Khan said. “Only cow’s dairy products can keep children from starvation.”
But if the water recedes, he added, he would have to sell the cattle to pay off the loan and gather the resources needed to plant wheat in the fall.
Even before this year’s monsoon rains hit, the economic crisis pushed basic prices for cultivation out of reach, as seasonal extremes ranged from heat waves to heavy monsoon rains. , many of the country’s farmers barely survived. — struck their fields.
“Farmers are mostly in debt because of high-interest loans to buy agricultural inputs such as seeds, pesticides and fertilizers,” said Akram Caskeri, leader of the non-governmental organization Hari Welfare Association. They are driven into poverty because they are poor.” For farmers based in Hyderabad.
Now the destruction of their crops has cost farmers millions of rupees in losses and pushed up the prices of vegetables such as onions and tomatoes, which had already been destroyed.
Large landowners are likely to survive the floods, but the damage will be devastating to the tens of thousands of small landowners and farmers who make up the backbone of Pakistan’s agricultural sector, Kaskeri added. .
Land ownership is still a highly feudal system in Pakistan, consisting mainly of vast tracts of land cultivated by farmers who work as forced labor in the form of debt bondage.
Officials have warned that damage and economic losses will be felt across the country in the months and years to come. The loss of cotton to the textile industry, which accounts for nearly 10% of Pakistan’s GDP, could thwart any hopes of an economic recovery.
Aid officials warn that even after the floods subside, rural areas could face a second wave of deaths from food shortages and diseases transmitted by polluted water and animals. Also, severe inflation and shortages of fresh food are likely to hit urban areas not affected by the floods.
To address the immediate needs of millions of people affected by the floods, aid groups and the Government of Pakistan have launched rescue operations and started distributing emergency relief supplies.
In a message appealing for international assistance to Pakistan, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “Pakistan’s people are facing a steroid monsoon: groundbreaking levels of rain and constant flooding.” said.
But the scale of the crisis complicates relief efforts, Pakistani officials say. As the situation worsens, anger at the government’s response is growing across Pakistan.
“We had to fend for ourselves,” said Mushtak Jamali, 84, a farmer from Sindh. “There was no government official or elected representative in our village to help us evacuate.”
Jamali, 84, moved from the suburb of Jacobabad, Sindh, to the port city of Karachi late last month after floods damaged a small farm.
This year’s floods were the latest extreme weather disaster to uproot his family. The 2010 floods that hit Sindh forced Jamali, along with his extended family of 18, to relocate to Karachi after their home was damaged. He said he had saved money for five years to rebuild his house.
In recent years, however, life in the district has been mostly It is impossible to survive. Jacobabad is one of Pakistan’s most climate-change-affected districts and is considered one of the hottest places on earth.
In May, temperatures soared to 124 degrees Fahrenheit — 51 degrees Celsius — It’s become one of the hottest cities in the world. Then, in the August flood, his house was destroyed again. Now he and his family plan to stay in Karachi permanently, he said.
“Because of excessive rain, floods and heat, it is difficult to survive and rebuild homes in Jacobabad now,” he said. “Our area was completely flooded.
Christina Goldbaum It was reported from Dubai and Islamabad, Pakistan. Zia ur Rehman Originally from Karachi. Isanullah Tip Mesud Contributed to report from Islamabad.