Reportage
Pakistan: Millions affected by monsoon floods
Audio 01:21
Residents leave their homes after massive floods that affected the whole country.
Here in Balochistan province on August 24, 2022. AP - Zahid Hussain
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Pakistan is facing massive floods.
In three weeks, it fell the equivalent of 60% of the annual average monsoon rains in the country.
More than 900 people have been killed over the past month and more than 95,350 homes have been destroyed.
In villages surrounded by water, some residents have no choice but to stay.
Advertising
Read more
With our special correspondent in the Punjab region
,
Sonia Ghezali
In Pakistan, hundreds of hectares of crops were ravaged and 500,000 head of cattle were killed in the face of these major floods.
Flash floods have also caused landslides and the destruction of dams.
More than 3,000 kilometers of roads were damaged.
Nationally, 570 schools have already been destroyed.
People in the provinces of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh where the most affected areas are poor rural areas, are living through hell as the rain continues to fall.
In the south of the Punjab, Mohammad Ishaq sails every day on the waters which cover around thirty villages.
“
Here, there was a cemetery, there, it was a village, here too, everywhere, here, there were villages
”, explains Mohammad Ishaq while pointing to the villages under water.
Aboard a motorized boat, this rescuer and his team go to the rescue of the trapped inhabitants.
Some, however, refuse to leave their homes despite the danger, like Rubab, who has been living with her children for two weeks in the middle of the waters.
Faced with Mohammad Ishaq who asks her what she will do if it rains again, and her house collapses, “
God will protect us
,” replies Rubab.
We have nowhere to go.
If her house were to collapse, the savior explains that they can give her a tent so that she can shelter with her family.
But without money, what worries Rubab is how she will be able to provide for her children.
Residents who refuse to leave
Rubab, who has never left her village, is terrified of finding herself alone in town: “
We are very poor.
I am very worried about my children.
But we have no other place to go, we have no relatives here.
My husband works away in another city.
If we leave the house, what will happen if we are looted?
If we are violated?
What will become of us?
»
Like Rubab, many people prefer to stay in their flooded homes, surrounded by water, as the rain continues to fall each day.
►
Also to listen: Pakistan: in the furnace of Jacobabad, the hottest city in the world
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Pakistan
Climate
Environment
Natural disasters