Nearly half a million people have been displaced by flooding in eastern Pakistan after days of heavy rain swelled rivers, according to rescue officials, who have been carrying out a huge rescue operation as the country struggles with a monsoon season of devastation.
According to a statement released Saturday by the Punjab Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), 835 people have died in the monsoon since June 26, with 195 in Punjab province alone.
Three transboundary rivers that cut through Punjab, which borders India, have swollen to exceptionally high levels, affecting more than 2,300 villages.
The regional Punjab government has initiated controlled breaches of key flood bunds to divert surging waters from the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers. All three major rivers overflowed simultaneously, for the first time in the country’s history, according to local media.
Nabeel Javed, the head of the Punjab government’s relief services, said on Saturday that 481,000 people stranded by the floods have been evacuated, along with 405,000 livestock.
Overall, more than 1.5 million people have been affected by the flooding.
“This is the biggest rescue operation in Punjab’s history,” Irfan Ali Khan, the head of the province’s disaster management agency, said at a news conference.
He said more than 800 boats and 1,300 rescue personnel were involved in evacuating families from affected regions, mostly in rural areas near the banks of the three rivers.
‘No human life left unattended’
The latest spell of monsoon flooding since the start of the week has killed 30 people, Khan said, with several hundred left dead throughout the heavier-than-usual season that began in June.
“No human life is being left unattended. All kinds of rescue efforts are continuing,” Khan said.
More than 500 relief camps have been set up to provide shelter to families and their livestock.
Farmer Safdar Munir in the city of Kasur said the floods took away his crops and all his belongings.
“So, we are pulling out our cattle as there is no fodder to feed our livestock. We have received no help from the government,” he told Al Jazeera.
Abid, another farmer, said: “The water came and destroyed everything. It is with great difficulty that I could save my livestock. My farm and crops are all underwater.”
In the impoverished town of Shahdara, on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Lahore, dozens of families were gathered in a school after fleeing the rising water in their homes.
Rains continued throughout Saturday, including in Lahore, the country’s second-largest city, where an entire housing development was half submerged by water.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) forecast new rounds of widespread rain, wind and thunderstorms across multiple regions.
In mid-August, more than 400 Pakistanis were killed in a matter of days by landslides caused by torrential rains on the other side of the country, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, close to Afghanistan and the only province held by the opposition to the federal authorities.
In 2022, unprecedented monsoon floods submerged a third of Pakistan, with the southern province of Sindh the worst-affected area.
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