One-third of Pakistan has been engulfed by rising food waters and the country has reported at least 75 new fatalities since Monday, with further flood warnings issued for Wednesday.
Pakistan's Flood Forecasting Division warned of worsening conditions in Sindh – the country's second largest province – over the next 24 hours, as the country's Indus River was expected to burst its banks again. Sindh province has already experienced four times the expected monsoon rainfall so far this year.
“Pakistan is awash in suffering. The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids – the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, ahead of launching a $160 million (£137 million) appeal for Pakistan on Tuesday.
The country's prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, added that the flooding is “the toughest movement in the history of Pakistan” and has caused up to $10 billion of damages.
“We are suffering from it but it is not our fault at all,” he said, during a press conference where his climate change minister caused the devastation a “climate catastrophe”.
“More than one million houses are damaged or destroyed. Seventy-two districts of Pakistan are in calamity and all four corners of Pakistan are underwater and more than 3500 kilometres of roads have been washed away. Around one million animals have died... I have not seen such devastation in my life.”
Across the country, at least 33 million Pakistanis have now been displaced by the devastating floods, roughly one in seven people. Eye witness reports from Pakistan's largest province of Balochistan say roughly 75 per cent of the region is under water.
Few citizens there are unaffected. On Tuesday, it emerged that one of the country's emerging popstars, Wahab Bugti, who found fame on the popular television show Coke Studio Pakistan, was made homeless after flood waters submerged his home in the village of Goth Muhammed Umar in Balochistan.
On Tuesday morning, Pakistani Army helicopters began dropping food and water packages into remote affected areas of the country, including villages in the country's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
But, ongoing torrential rainfall makes aid and rescue operations difficult – 11 people died on Monday after a boat used by volunteers capsized in the southern Pakistani city of Bilawal Pur.
Hundreds of thousands of people are said to be living in makeshift tents and water borne diseases, like cholera, are on the rise.
“We urgently need shelter and tents, and mosquito nets,” said Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Pakistan's foreign minister, on Tuesday. “The situation is likely to deteriorate even further as heavy rains continue over areas already inundated by more than two months of storms and flooding.”
Pakistan also witnessed devastating flooding in 2010 and around 2,000 people died. But, it is feared the death toll from this year's flooding will surpass that figure with Pakistan’s climate minister, Sherry Rehman, warning heavy monsoon rainfall could last until September.
Ms Rehman and other Pakistani politicians have blamed the floods on climate change – Pakistan has seen drastically heavier than usual monsoon rainfall since June, accompanied by increased glacial melt.
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