At least 33 million people have been affected by the disaster, Pakistan’s Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said on Thursday. He called the floods “unprecedented” and “the worst humanitarian disaster of this decade”. “Pakistan is going through the eighth cycle of monsoon, whereas normally the country has only three to four cycles of rain,” Rehman said. “The rates of flash floods are staggering.” He particularly emphasized the effects in the south of the country, adding that “maximum” relief efforts are underway. Army deployment has been authorized to assist in relief and rescue operations in flood-hit areas, the country’s interior ministry said in a statement on Friday. The ministry said troops would help Pakistan’s four provincial governments, including the worst-hit southwestern province of Balochistan. The exact number of troops as well as where and when they will be deployed will be determined between the provinces and the government, the ministry said. Meanwhile, flood relief centers are being established in various parts of the country to help collect, transport and distribute flood relief goods to victims, the Pakistan Armed Forces said. Army troops are also helping people evacuate to safer places by providing shelter, meals and providing medical care to those affected by the floods, the armed forces said. The southern province of Sindh, which has been hit hard by the floods, has requested 1 million tents, while nearby Balochistan province — largely cut off from electricity, gas and internet — has requested 100,000 tents, Rehman said. “Pakistan’s priority, right now, is this climate humanitarian disaster of epic proportions,” Rehman said, urging the international community to provide assistance given Pakistan’s “limited” resources. On Friday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Sharif briefed international diplomats on the crisis, saying his country — at the forefront of climate change despite a relatively small carbon footprint — must focus its recovery on greater climate resilience. Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal told Reuters separately that 30 million people have been affected, a number that would represent about 15 percent of the South Asian country’s population. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a briefing on Thursday that monsoon rains have affected an estimated 3 million people in Pakistan, of whom 184,000 have been displaced in relief camps across the country. Financing and reconstruction efforts will be a challenge for cash-strapped Pakistan, which must cut spending to ensure the International Monetary Fund approves the release of much-needed bailout money. The NDMA said in a report that in the last 24 hours, 150 kilometers (about 93 miles) of roads were damaged across the country and more than 82,000 houses were partially or totally damaged. Since mid-June, when the monsoon began, more than 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) of road, 130 bridges and 495,000 houses have been damaged, according to the NDMA’s latest status report, figures echoed in the OHCA’s report.
