Floods affect 33 million people, Pakistan declares state of emergency
Pakistan ranks 8th in the Global Climate Risk Index, a list created by the environmental organization Germanwatch to compile the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change.
Pakistan declared a state of emergency after flooding rains destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and affected 33 million people.
Office of the Prime Minister Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif on August 26 announced that 33 million people were “severely affected by the floods”.
Pakistan’s disaster response agency said nearly 220,000 homes were destroyed, and more than half a million were damaged by the floods.
Pakistan’s Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said the government had declared a state of emergency and appealed for international assistance in dealing with the floods.
During the Aug. 24 meeting, Rehman called the flooding a “catastrophe of terrible scale.”
Pakistan’s National Disaster Response Agency (NDMA) on August 26 announced that a total of 900 people were killed, including 34 in the last 24 hours, as a result of flooding rains that began in June.
Pakistani officials say this year’s floods are comparable to 2010, the worst time on record when more than 2,000 people were killed and nearly a fifth of the South Asian country was submerged.
