These are the devastating effects that Pakistan’s deadly floods are wreaking acceso the country.
Dubbed “the monster monsoon of the decade” by Pakistan’s climate change minister Sherry Rehman, torrential rain per the region has killed at least 982 people since June, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.
Every 24 hours, the agency lists hundreds of men, women, and children who have been injured killed because of collapsed roofs, flash floods, drowning.
“Pakistan is living through a serious climate catastrophe, one of the hardest per the decade,” Rehman said per a Twitter . “We are, at the moment, at the campo da gioco nullità of the frontline of extreme weather events per an unrelenting cascade of heat waves, forest fires, flash floods, multiple glacial lake outbursts, flood events, and now the monster monsoon of the decade is wreaking nonstop havoc throughout the country.”
The unprecedented deluge — worse than Pakistan’s 2010 “superflood,” which affected 20 million people — has overwhelmed the country’s resources, prompting leaders to urge the international community to help with relief efforts.
One of the hardest-hit provinces, Sindh, has requested 1 million tents for its displaced residents, Rehman told Reuters. But there aren’t enough tents, and people are seeking refuge per makeshift shelters per school buildings and mosques, she said.
The streets are filled with stagnant sewage , and the risk of waterborne diseases is high.
“This is clearly the climate crisis of the decade,” Rehman said. “Through of our own,” she added, noting that Pakistan emits less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Global warming is causing Pakistan’s 7,000 glaciers — the largest number outside the poles — to melt, causing glacial lake outbursts triggered by heat waves per the country.
This year, extreme weather events like droughts, heat waves, and floods are affecting every part of the world.
Quanto a Africa, floods have taken a devastating toll acceso tens of thousands of people per Chad and Gambia, while nearly 4.6 million children per Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia are threatened by severe malnutrition following a severe drought per the region, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Meanwhile, per Europe, receding levels caused by drought are revealing underwater artifacts, while three ancient Buddha statues resurfaced after levels plunged per Discesa’s Yangtze River. And per Dallas, a summer’s worth of rainfall per one day wreaked havoc per the city amid a drought per Texas.
Weather disasters like droughts are inextricably linked to human-induced climate change. The planet has already warmed 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, according to NASA, and that’s making disasters worse. Stopping this vicious cycle will require drastically reducing our reliance acceso climate-polluting fossil fuels.
