Historic monsoon rains and flooding in Pakistan have affected more than 30 million people over the last few weeks, while officials in the South Asian country have declared a national emergency, saying they are assessing the total figure of homeless.
During a three-hour meeting late Thursday night, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif decided to declare an emergency and ordered the Pakistan army to send troops to assist the civil administration with relief and rescue operations.
Sherry Rehman, the country’s climate change minister called the situation a “climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions” on Thursday.
“Thirty-three million have been affected, in different ways; the final homeless figure is being assessed,” Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman told the Reuters news agency in a text message.
Pakistan has urged the international community to help with relief efforts as it struggles to cope with the aftermath of torrential rains that have triggered massive floods since last month, killing more than 900 people.
Rehman said Sindh province has received “784 percent” more rainfall this month than the August average, while the province of Balochistan had received nearly 500 percent more.
She added that the southern province, hardest hit in the last few days, had requested 1 million tents for affected people.
“South of Pakistan is inundated almost underwater. … People are going to higher ground,” she said.
“Needs assessment is being done, we have to make UN’s international flash appeal; this is not the task of one country or one province, it is a climate-induced disaster,” she added.
Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal separately told Reuters that 30 million people had been affected, a figure that would represent about 15 percent of the South Asian country’s population.
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