A month after torrential monsoon rains triggered Pakistan’s worst natural disaster on record, flood waters are starting to recede, but leaving countless survivors at risk of death from hunger and disease.
The disaster has killed at least 1,643 people, forced more than 6 million from their homes, inflicted billions of dollars of damage to infrastructure and the vital agriculture sector and stirred anger against the government that has struggled to cope.
Despite generally lower water levels, officials said they were still battling to save the delta town of Thatta, 70km east of Karachi, in the southern province of Sindh.
Water has broken the banks of the Indus near Thatta and also topped a feeder canal running off the river.
“Thatta will be inundated if this water does not flow into the sea. The situation is very critical,” Sindh relief commissioner Riaz Ahmed Soomro said. “We are trying to fill in breaches and strengthen embankments to save Thatta.”
Soomro said about 95 percent of the delta town’s 300,000 residents had already fled.
“Only male members of the families have stayed back to save their property. Children, women and old people, all of them have left Thatta,” Soomro said.
The floods began late last month after torrential monsoon downpours over the upper Indus basin in northwest Pakistan.
Weather officials said water levels were receding on most rivers and they expected no rain in the coming few days.
“We believe that it will take another 10 to 12 days for rivers in Sindh to come to normal flow. Therefore, we still need to be watchful,” said Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the government’s top weather official.
The death toll was expected to rise significantly as the bodies of the many missing people are found.
The UN said aid workers were increasingly worried about disease and hunger — especially among children — in areas where even before the disaster acute malnutrition was high.
UN officials say an estimated 72,000 children, affected by severe malnutrition in flood-affected areas, are at high risk of dying.
Even before the floods, Pakistan’s economy was fragile. Growth, forecast at 4.5 percent this fiscal year, is now predicted at anything between zero and 3 percent.
The floods have damaged at least 3.2 million hectares — about 14 percent of Pakistan’s cultivated land — the UN food agency said.
The total cost in crop damages is believed to be about 245 billion rupees (US$2.86 billion.)
‘INTRUSIONS’: The ‘Global Times’ reported that Thitu Island in the Spratlys group is ‘illegally occupied’ by the Philippines, which is expanding military infrastructure on it The Philippines could “stir up trouble” at yet another “Chinese” island in the South China Sea, China’s state-backed Global Times reported late on Thursday, after what it said were Manila’s “provocative intrusions” into waters at two other reefs in the region. The Philippines is expanding military infrastructure on Thitu Island (Jhongye Island, 中業島) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, to potentially invite warships and warplanes from countries outside of the region such as the US and Japan, sabotaging peace and stability in the South China Sea, the newspaper reported, citing Chinese experts. Thitu Island is “illegally occupied”
A museum in southern French city Marseille is inviting visitors to discover Europe’s relationship to the naturist lifestyle by wandering its halls in the nude. “It’s not every day you get to walk around a museum naked,” said Julie Guegnolle, 38, who was celebrating her birthday at the “Naturist Paradises” exhibition in the Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean (Mucem). Once a month, visitors to Mucem can explore the history of naturism in Europe in only their shoes — a precaution not for modesty’s sake but simply to “avoid getting splinters,” said Eric Stefanut, head of French naturist organization
‘SON OF GOD’: Quiboloy was in 2021 indicted by US prosecutors for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and ‘damnation’ Hundreds of police officers backed by riot squads yesterday raided a vast religious compound in a southern Philippine city in search of a local preacher accused of sexual abuse and human trafficking, police officials said. A supporter of the group, called Kingdom of Jesus Christ, reportedly died due to a heart attack during the massive police raid that started at dawn in the group’s compound in Davao City, livestreamed online by a local TV network owned by the group, police said, adding that the death was not related to the police operations. Officers brought equipment that could detect people behind cement walls,
They are the most fervent musicians no one has ever heard. Performers at this year’s Air Guitar World Championships in Finland on Friday tuned up at the Olympics of air guitar for the 27th time, featuring dedicated competitors like “Shred Lasso” and “Guitarantula.” This year’s challenge began on Wednesday with Airientation in Oulu, nearly 540km north of Helsinki, and was headlined by a class open to veterans and new guitarists alike. The Dark Horses Qualifications followed on Thursday, culminating with the World Championships Final on Friday night with the crowning of Canada’s Zachary “Ichabod Fame” Knowles as the 2024 Air Guitar World