Authorities in flood-hit Pakistan breached the country’s largest freshwater lake on Sunday, displacing up to 100,000 people from their homes but saving more densely populated areas from gathering flood water, a minister said.
Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in Pakistan’s northern mountains have brought floods that have affected 33 million people and killed at least 1,290, including 453 children. The inundation, blamed on climate change, is still spreading.
Manchar Lake, which is used for water storage, had already reached dangerous levels and the increased pressure posed a threat to surrounding areas in southern Sindh province, Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro said.
[ Pakistan flood toll rises with 25 children among 57 additional deaths ]
He said about 100,000 people would be affected by the breach but it would help save more populated clusters and also reduce water levels in other, harder-hit areas.
“By inflicting the breach we have tried to save Sehwan town. Water levels on Johi and Mehar towns in Dadu district would be reduced by this breach in the lake,” Mr Shoro said.
It was not clear how many of the 100,000 asked to leave their homes would actually do so.
Some displaced by the floods have complained that shelters are crowded, while others are reluctant to leave their possessions.
Aside from historic rainfall, southern Pakistan has had to contend with increased flooding as a surge of water flowed down the Indus river.
The country has already received nearly three times the 30-year average rainfall in the quarter through August, totalling 390.7mm (15.38 inches). Sindh province, with a population of 50 million, was hardest hit, getting 464 per cent more rain than the 30-year average.
Being downstream on the Indus river, the southern parts of the country have witnessed swelling river waters flowing from the north. Pakistan’s limited dams and reservoirs are already overflowing and cannot be used to stop downstream flows.
Tarbela dam in the northwest, has been at capacity — 472m (1,550 feet) and more than 23 million hectares (5.8 million acres) — for weeks, said the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) data.
Downstream in Sindh, barrages are under pressure with the Indus river in high flood level, the NDMA said in its latest situation report.
Authorities also prepared for more rain in the north over the next few days until Tuesday.
“Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has forecasted that weak monsoon currents from Arabian Sea are penetrating upper and central parts of the country which subsequently cause rain-wind / thundershowers,” the NDMA said in an advisory.
It cautioned local administrations to be on an enhanced state of alertness, and to restrict vehicle movement in areas prone to flash floods and landslides as well as those close to water channels.
It said some populations in the north could be at risk, and advised “timely evacuation”.
The overnight death toll from the floods increased by 25, of which 12 were children, according an NDMA update. The United Nations children’s agency Unicef said there was a risk of “many more” child deaths from disease after floods.
Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday appealed to Unicef and other global agencies to help control child deaths.
“As Pakistan battles one of the worst climate-induced calamities, among the most adversely affected are children,” Mr Sharif said on Twitter.
On Sunday, flights carrying aid from Unicef, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates landed in Pakistan.
Earlier, Pakistan’s minister for climate change said rich polluting countries which are predominantly to blame for the “dystopian” climate breakdown have broken their promises to reduce emissions and help developing countries adapt to global heating and reparations were long overdue.
The country’s climate minister, Sherry Rehman, said global emission targets and reparations must be reconsidered, given the accelerated and relentless nature of climate catastrophes hitting countries such as Pakistan.
“Global warming is the existential crisis facing the world and Pakistan is Ground Zero — yet we have contributed less than 1 per cent to [greenhouse gas] emissions. We all know that the pledges made in multilateral forums have not been fulfilled,” said Ms Rehman (61) a former journalist, senator and diplomat who previously served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US.
“There is so much loss and damage with so little reparations to countries that contributed so little to the world’s carbon footprint that obviously the bargain made between the global north and global south is not working. We need to be pressing very hard for a reset of the targets because climate change is accelerating much faster than predicted, on the ground, that is very clear,” he said.
The extent of Pakistan’s flood damage is unprecedented.
An area the size of the state of Colorado is inundated, with more than 200 bridges and 3,000 miles of telecom lines collapsed or damaged, Ms Rehman said. At least 33 million people have been affected — a figure expected to rise after authorities complete damage surveys next week. In the Sindh district, which produces half the country’s food, 90 per cent of crops are ruined. Entire villages and agricultural fields have been swept away.
“The whole area looks like an ocean with no horizon — nothing like this has been seen before,” said Ms Rehman. “I wince when I hear people say these are natural disasters. This is very much the age of the anthropocene: these are man-made disasters.”
Many have fled inundated rural areas looking for food and shelter in nearby cities which are ill-equipped to cope, and it is unclear when — or if — they will ever be able to go back. The total number of people remain stranded in remote areas, waiting to be rescued, remains unknown.
[ Pakistan floods: Appeal for aid as extent of flooding revealed ]
The water will take months to drain, and — despite a brief pause in the downfall — more heavy rain is forecast for mid-September.
Ms Rehman, who was named minister for climate change in April amid a political and economic crisis that saw the ousting of the prime minister, Imran Khan, has said the government was doing everything possible but rescue and aid missions had been hampered by continual rain and the sheer scale of need.
While sympathetic to the global economic challenges caused by the Covid pandemic and war in Ukraine, she was adamant that “richer countries must do more”.
“Historic injustices have to be heard and there must be some level of climate equation so that the brunt of the irresponsible carbon consumption is not being laid on nations near the equator which are obviously unable to create resilient infrastructure on their own,” she said.
There are also growing calls for fossil fuel companies — making record profits as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine — to pay for the damage caused by global heating to developing countries.
Ms Rehman said: “Big polluters often try to greenwash their emissions but you can’t walk away from the reality that big corporations that have net profits bigger than the GDP of many countries need to take responsibility.”
The annual UN climate talks take place in Egypt in November, where the group of 77 developing countries plus China, which Pakistan chairs, will be pushing hard for the polluters to pay up after a year of devastating drought, floods, heatwaves and forest fires.
Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to global heating, and the current catastrophic floods come after four consecutive heatwaves with temperatures topping 53 degrees earlier this year.
It has more than 7,200 glaciers — more than anywhere outside the poles — which are melting much faster and earlier due to rising temperatures, adding water to rivers already swollen by rainfall.
A view of makeshift tents of flood victims taking refuge on a higher ground. Photograph: Reuters
“We’re going to be very clear and unequivocal about what we see as our needs and due, as well as where we see the series of larger global targets going. But loss and danger to the south which is already in the throes of an accelerated climate dystopia will have to be part of the bargain driven at Cop27,” she said.
Richer polluting countries have so far been slow to cough up pledged money to help developing countries adapt to climate shocks, and even more reluctant to engage in meaningful negotiations about financing loss and damage suffered by poorer nations like Pakistan which have contributed negligibly to greenhouse gas emissions.
Discussion about reparations has been mostly blocked, leaving vulnerable countries like Pakistan “facing the brunt of other people’s reckless carbon consumption”.
“As you can see, global warming hasn’t gone down — quite the opposite. And there is only so much adaptation we can do. The melting of glaciers, the floods, drought, forest fires, none will stop without very serious pledges being honoured,” said Ms Rehman.
“We are on the frontline and intend to keep loss and damage and adapting to climate catastrophes at the core of our arguments and negotiations. There will be no moving away from that.” — Reuters/Guardian
