Four million people have been affected by devastating floods in Pakistan, and thousands of farmers across the border in India are also experiencing the loss of their crops as experts say global warming has worsened the scale of the monsoon rains both nations are now suffering.
Over the past week, heavy rains swelled three rivers that run through Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, causing widespread devastation in the country’s agricultural heartland.
Entire towns have been submerged, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder reported from Multan, Pakistan, on Sunday.
“The floods have left thousands of farms inundated. Valuable crops are lost,” he said, noting that the government was trying to offer relief to those affected.
Mohammed Ajmal, a spokesperson for the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League, told Al Jazeera that the damage caused by the floods was “unimaginable”.
“Our party … is working round the clock to help those affected around the country. This disaster is so vast that the government alone cannot tackle it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sobia Bibi, a flood survivor, spoke of the devastation the flooding has left in its wake: “In these floods, we lost everything: our homes, our crops – all that we worked for,” she said.
“Help is limited, and there are too many of us in need. Our children are sitting under the open sky in the sun or in rain. We desperately need tents to protect them.”
During the rescue efforts, a boat carrying people to safety in eastern Pakistan flipped on Saturday when it struck an underwater object, killing a 70-year-old woman and four children, authorities confirmed on Sunday.
“Ten other people were rescued, but unfortunately, five people lost their lives in the incident,” Irfan Ali Kathia, the director general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, told local media.
According to Punjab Relief Commissioner Nabil Javed, the flooding of the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers has forced more than two million people to flee their homes.
Pakistani authorities have set up hundreds of relief camps, medical facilities and veterinary posts to help both people and livestock.
Since June, more than 900 people have died in Pakistan as a result of the monsoon floods, the United Nations said.
In neighbouring India, tens of thousands of people have recently been evacuated due to the floods.
Thousands of farmers who had been preparing to harvest their crops are now worried about the future as authorities in India’s Punjab region reported that 1,620sq km (625sq miles) of farmland had been damaged.
“The rice varieties we have sown in the past – everything is gone,” farmer Satkar Singh told Al Jazeera from the region where 40 percent of the country’s basmati rice exports are grown.
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