My homeland is drowning

Water levels in Pakistan's biggest lake are starting to recede, officials say, after last-ditch attempts to prevent it from bursting its banks.

Since mid-June 2022, Pakistan has been drenched by extreme monsoon rains that have led to the country’s worst flooding in a decade. According to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, the floods have affected more than 33 million people and destroyed or damaged more than 1 million houses. At least 1,100 people were killed by floodwaters that inundated tens of thousands of square kilometers of the country.

The false-color images above were acquired by the Operational Land Imagers aboard the Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 satellites on August 4 and 28, respectively. The images combine shortwave infrared, near infrared, and red light (bands 6-5-4) to better distinguish flood waters (deep blue) beyond their natural channels.

The worst flooding occurred along the Indus River in the provinces of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and Sindh. The provinces of Balochistan and Sindh have so far this year received five to six times their 30-year average rainfall. Most of that arrived in summer monsoon rains.

Across the country, about 150 bridges and 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) of roads have been destroyed, according to ReliefWeb. More than 700,000 livestock and 2 million acres of crops and orchards have also been lost.

The immense volume of rain- and meltwater inundated the dams, reservoirs, canals, and channels of the country’s large and highly developed irrigation system. On August 31, the Indus River System Authority authorized some releases from dams because the water flowing in threatened to exceed the capacity of several reservoirs.

Torrential monsoon rains have triggered the most severe flooding in Pakistan’s recent history, washing away villages and leaving around 3.4 million children in need of assistance and at increased risk of waterborne diseases, drowning and malnutrition.

Hundreds of thousands of homes have been destroyed, while many public health facilities, water systems and schools have been destroyed or damaged. By 9 September, more than 664,000 people were sheltering in displacement camps, with many lacking adequate shelter and access to adequate food, clean water and sanitation.

UNICEF is responding with the Government and partners, helping to deliver safe drinking water; lifesaving medical supplies; therapeutic food supplies; and hygiene kits to children and families. We are also establishing temporary learning centres and supporting the protection and psychosocial wellbeing of children affected by these devastating floods.

But much more is needed to ensure we can reach all families displaced by floods and help them overcome this climate disaster.

Manchar Lake, in Sindh province, is dangerously full after record monsoons that inundated swathes of Pakistan.

Its banks were deliberately breached to protect surrounding areas and more than 100,000 people have been displaced.

Teams are racing to rescue thousands still stranded in Pakistan's worst climate-induced disaster in years.

"We see the water is now starting to come down," provincial minister Jam Khan Shoro told the BBC. "If we didn't make the breaches, several towns with big populations would have been destroyed and many more people in danger."

Floods in Pakistan have affected some 33 million people and caused at least 1,343 deaths, Pakistan's National Disaster Management Agency said.

Officials have said a little over a quarter of a million people are in shelters, a fraction of those who need help.

Damaged infrastructure is also hampering aid and rescue operations, which cannot keep pace with demand. Some connecting roads in Sindh province have either collapsed, are flooded or are backed up for days with queuing traffic.

Manchar Lake straddles two districts - Jamshoro and Dadu - with an urban population of more than 1 million.

Johi, a town near the lake, has been surrounded by water and now resembles an island. Its residents have built an improvised dyke to slow down water coming into the area, as they did during floods in 2010. Authorities told the BBC they do not know yet if the measure will work this time.

Meanwhile, the UN children's agency Unicef has said more children are at risk of dying from disease in Pakistan because of the shortage of clean water.

This year's floods - Pakistan's worst climate-induced natural disaster in years - have been caused by record torrential rainfall and melting glaciers in the country's northern mountains.

Pakistan's climate change minister, Sherry Rehman, told the BBC that richer countries needed to do more to help poorer countries faced with the devastation caused by climate change.

"Richer countries have got rich on the back of fossil fuels… and have been burning their way to kingdom come," she said in an interview with BBC News.

The disaster has highlighted the stark disparity between countries that are the largest contributors towards climate change and countries that bear the brunt of its impact. Pakistan produces less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions but its geography makes it extremely vulnerable to climate change.

Low-emission countries like Pakistan, Ms Rehman said, "are now feeling the heat - quite literally of other people's development and greed".

"We have made an appeal to the developed world that this is the time to actually do more."

She acknowledged flood aid from countries including the US, Qatar, Turkey - but said international support would be needed to help make Pakistan's infrastructure climate resilient.

"We neither have the money or the technical capacity."

The effect of the monsoon rains has been compounded by the continued melting of Pakistan’s 7,000 glaciers. The country holds the most glacial ice found outside the polar regions. Climate warming and recent heat waves have precipitated several glacial-outburst floods. In the rugged northern part of the country, the combined rain and meltwater has turned slopes into hill torrents.

On August 30, the Pakistani government declared a national emergency and, with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, called for international aid for humanitarian relief efforts.

Pakistan last faced such dramatic and widespread flooding in 2010.

There are many sites where you can donate in “Flood Relief Programs” I am sharing few links below.

PM flood relief funds

Flood relief-Akhuwat

Chhipa Welfare Flood Relief