Hundreds of children have died due to monsoon rains in Pakistan

() — Heavy rains and flooding have killed at least 1,033 people, including 348 children, and injured 1,527 others in Pakistan since mid-June, authorities said Sunday.

The country’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) added that in the last 24 hours alone, 119 people were killed and 71 injured.

At least 33 million people have been affected by the catastrophe, Pakistan’s Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said on Thursday. She called the flooding “unprecedented” and “the worst humanitarian disaster of this decade.”

“Pakistan is going through its eighth monsoon cycle, whereas normally the country only has three to four cycles of rain,” Rehman said. “The percentages of superflood torrents are shocking.”

He highlighted in particular the impact in the south of the country, adding that “maximum” relief efforts are being carried out.

The deployment of the army was authorized to assist in relief and rescue operations in the areas affected by the floods, the country’s interior ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The ministry said the soldiers would help Pakistan’s four provincial governments, including the hardest-hit southwestern province of Baluchistan.

The exact number of troops, as well as where and when they will be deployed, will be agreed between the provinces and the government, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, flood relief centers are being set up in various parts of the country to help collect, transport and distribute relief goods to the victims, the Pakistan Armed Forces said.

Army troops are also helping people evacuate to safer places by providing shelter, meals and providing medical care to those affected by the floods, the military said.

The southern province of Sindh, hit hard by the floods, has requested 1 million tents, while the nearby province of Baluchistan – largely without electricity, gas and internet – has ordered 100,000 tents, Rehman said.

“Pakistan’s priority, right now, is this climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions,” Rehman said, urging the international community to provide aid given Pakistan’s “limited” resources.

A displaced man carries his daughters out of his flood-damaged home in Jaffarabad, a district in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, on Saturday.

A farmer uses cots to store usable items after salvaging them from his flood-damaged house in Jaffarabad.

On Friday, Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif briefed international diplomats on the crisis, saying his country – on the front lines of climate change despite having a relatively small carbon footprint – must focus its rehabilitation on greater resilience. to climate change.

Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal told Reuters separately that 30 million people had been affected, a figure that would represent around 15% of the South Asian country’s population.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update on Thursday that monsoon rains had affected some 3 million people in Pakistan, of whom 184,000 have been displaced to aid camps. in all the country.

Financing and reconstruction efforts will be a challenge for cash-strapped Pakistan, which is having to cut spending to ensure the International Monetary Fund approves the release of much-needed bailout money.

The NDMA noted in a report that in the past 24 hours, 150 kilometers (about 93 miles) of roads had been damaged across the country and more than 82,000 houses partially or fully damaged.

Since mid-June, when the monsoon began, more than 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) of roads, 130 bridges and 495,000 homes have been damaged, according to the latest NDMA situation report, figures also echoed in the report. of the OCHA.

‘s Sophia Saifi, Akanksha Sharma and Asim Khan contributed to this report.