Pakistan today called for international support to deal with floods that have claimed more than 1,000 lives in the country since June, when heavy monsoon rains began.
“Some countries have promised help and it is coming to us, but we need more help to support millions of people affected by the floods,” Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal told the Efe news agency.
The United States of America, the United Kingdom, China and the United Arab Emirates are some of the countries that have responded to the country’s call, but the Pakistani executive points out that more funds are needed to respond to what are the worst floods in the country since 2010. .
The first flight with humanitarian aid and relief material is expected to arrive this afternoon at Noor Khan air base, north of Rawalpindi, the prime minister’s office said.
In the next few days, 15 more planes should arrive with humanitarian material from the United Arab Emirates.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said on Saturday that 1,033 people had died since the start of the rains on June 14, 119 of them in the last 24 hours.
The rains have also caused 1,527 injuries in the last two months, razed 949,858 homes and destroyed almost 3,500 kilometers of roads, according to the NDMA, cited by Efe.
More than 33 million people, or one Pakistani in seven, were also affected by the floods and nearly a million homes were destroyed or severely damaged, according to government figures.
The NDMA indicated that more than 80,000 hectares of cultivated land were destroyed and more than 3,400 kilometers of roads and 149 bridges were washed away.
The monsoon, designation of the seasonal winds associated with the alternation between the rainy season and the dry season, between June and September, is essential for the irrigation of crops and the reconstitution of the water resources of the Indian subcontinent.
The Pakistani government declared a state of emergency on Friday, mobilizing the military to deal with “a catastrophe of rare proportions,” as Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman called it.
The European Union announced this Saturday that it has allocated 1.8 million euros in humanitarian aid to families affected by the floods in Pakistan.
In a statement, the community executive points out that the humanitarian aid aims to support, in particular, the affected populations in some of the most affected districts of the provinces of Sindh, Baluchistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with funds earmarked for humanitarian aid. from the EU. partners operating on the ground.
Last week, the EU had already allocated 350,000 euros in aid to the populations of the province of Balochistan affected by the floods.
Source: Observadora
