return to Pakistan now, which is reeling from the devastating floods
caused by monsoon rains. Pakistani officials estimate that one in
seven people in the country have now been impacted. At least 1000
people have been killed since June. UNICEF says a third of them were
Children.
Across Pakistan communities have been reduced to this skeletal remains
of buildings washed away by historic flooding since mid June.
In the southeastern Sindh province. Rihanna. Lee and his family are
among the millions digging through the debris of what was once their
home
tonight. I don't know how to rebuild my destroyed house. I don't
have anything to feed my family. I lost everything. I don't know
where to go. God help me.
More than 33 million people have been affected by flooding this summer
alone, leaving one third of the country submerged.
Higher than normal rainfall inundated spots along the Indus River,
running the length of the country from the Marbella dam in the north
to the Riverside city of Co tree in the south. Over the weekend,
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif was seen dropping supplies
from a helicopter part of a military relief mission in the hard hit
Baluchistan province. He also announced a new relief package
from the central government announced a grant of ₹10 billion for
the Baluchistan province, the national disaster Management.
Authorities, along with provincial government plan relief works Even
with more funding on its way many people are feeling abandoned by
their government. We are looking towards the government to provide
some sort of relief to us. We don't have food to eat. We don't have
shelter to sleep in no clean drinking water. I urged the world to
come save us.
Nearly 300,000 homes have been destroyed in the daily so far, leaving
millions scrambling for shelter. Half a million people have piled
into relief camps set up in government buildings. Others have taken
to staying on roadsides. The flooding is being fueled by a relentless
monsoon season, with rainfall measurements coming in at three times
higher than the 30 year nationwide average.
These extreme weather events are exacerbated by rising temperatures
in the country. Pakistan's top climate official is referring to the
events as a quote, serious climate catastrophe and warning about
the road ahead and the climate emergencies impact reaches further
than just property, causing large scale damage to crops and infrastructure.
Economic losses could top $10 billion, the country's planning minister
said today.
That includes this date. Farmer Abdellatif Meidani, whose harvest
is a total loss
day crop is harvested once a year. We worked very hard and spent
a lot of money on the farm this year and hope for a very good crop
in a good profit from it, But these rains ruined all our hopes Nothing
could be saved. Roads and highways across the country have been rendered
impassable to
This murder devastated or network at many locations,
all strategies initially we have to temporarily restore the traffic
law.
And then after that the appointment rehabilitation will take time.
Pakistan is calling for international support countries, including
Turkey have sent rescue teams. Meanwhile, Pope Francis addressed
the suffering during a sermon in Italy over the weekend
A for the many victims for the injured and the evacuated and so that
international solidarity will be prompt and generous.
For more on the floods in Pakistan. I spoke earlier today with Sarah
Hayat, a lawyer specializing in climate change and an adjunct professor
at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. I began by asking
her who in Pakistan is hardest hit.
Well, pretty much, um all provinces are hit at some level or the
other and the country itself. All of Pakistan. Really One in seven
Pakistanis are sleeping out in the open these days, um, that that
that is the scale of devastation. Really. So in 2010, Pakistan was
hit with what were called the super floods at that 20100.20 million
people were left homeless.
The kind of destruction that we faced was unprecedented. But these
floods are worse than those in terms of skill and the kind of devastation
the opposing Sarah, What can you tell us about the government response
or any kind of aid? Has that been able to make its way to anyone
in the country? Pakistan has made calls for aid and we have responses.
The United Kingdom, the United States, the United Arab Emirates.
Have all offered aid and are sending it. Um, jockey has sent relief
workers there on the ground in Pakistan right now working with the
government and the army. Everybody's donating whatever they can organizations.
Companies, um, and the idea is to collect it and get and get it into
trucks to deliver on the ground.
The problem there, though, is that because of these floods we've
lost thousands of kilometers of of road submerged entirely underwater.
We've lost a lot of bridges, so some parts of the country are literally
severed. We cannot access them and so many people have been impacted
to the degree. They have one out of every seven people. As you said,
now, sleeping out in the open, give us a sense.
Of the need. What is it like there on the ground for people Right
now there has been some coverage of food packets being thrown from
helicopters. This is very inequitable, because when people are hustling
to get to this package, they trip they fall. They hurt themselves
fight amongst themselves and when food and aid is distributed from
thrown from trucks, women never get them. So it's a It's a very gender
sensitive issue. We need medicines on the ground. There are reports
of waterborne disease.
Eases diarrheal infections that are coming from
Relief camps. We need basic necessities. These people have lost everything,
everything all they have the wet clothes that they're wearing that
that are sticking to their bodies pretty much and hygiene products
for women. Those are becoming a problem, and women are in desperate
need of those as well. We should mention too. It's not just Pakistan
that's seen devastating floods so far this year, right? We've seen
floods in Bangladesh and in India as well. What broadly speaking
is going on on the subcontinent. It's scary, really. It's it's what
we're what we're seeing and what it's doing to people.
Climate change is definitely one of the driving forces behind the
kind of floods that we received in Pakistan this time.
And the temperature rise in the global south, especially in India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, This region is higher than the
rest of the world. And unless we control our car, climate change
global warming At this point, the gotten temperature increase will
be much right now it's 1.2 degrees higher by the end of the century.
We expecting this part of the of the planet to be about 1.5 degrees
warmer than than, um,
Global average. Jackson gets monsoon rains every year, and they are
devastating, but we get about 3 to 4 monsoon cycles annually. This
time we have eight cycles already. We've had those and we're expecting
more cycles. Um, in the last 30 years of the the average rainfall
this year is about 400% more than the last 30 years average. So I
mean, if you get a sense of what's happened, the second is glacial
melt.
As you know that this part of the world holds the title largest glacial
ice mass on the planet, nearly 8000 glaciers in this part of the
world. Those glaciers are receding because of climate change and
global warming, and what that's doing is it's causing flash floods.
It's causing Glacier Lake outburst floods and all that water is coming
downstream. Based on the trends you've seen based on the action or
inaction you've seen
Do you see more floods, more flooding. More damage like this ahead
and Pakistan is the 10th
is almost always in one of the top 10 most impacted countries by
climate change, and so we are and because this region is going to
be very hot also, and it's getting very hot. I think it's fair to
assume that we will be seeing more floods and more natural disasters
themselves.
But that said, I do want to put it out there that Pakistan is not
responsible for climate change. Um the global greenhouse gas emissions
of the from the country are less than 0.8% of global greenhouse gas
emissions. That's negligible. There's nothing The only problem is
that we are contributing to it, but we are facing the branch of it
because of our own vulnerability.
Um and we need we need the developed world to step up.
Sarah, are you joining us tonight from Lahore, Pakistan. Thank you
so much for your time.