KARACHI: Pakistan’s Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provinces have respectively suffered $6.7 billion and around $2 billion losses after torrential rains and floods destroyed huge infrastructure and farmland in the southern and northwestern provinces, officials said on Tuesday.
Floods triggered by record monsoon rains and melting glaciers have killed more than 1,300 people and affected another 33 million as well as destroyed a vast network of roads and crops across Pakistan since the onset of monsoon season in mid-June, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
Pakistan’s Sindh, Balochistan and KP provinces are most affected by the unprecedented deluges that have inundated one third of the country.
“As per the initial estimates the Sindh province has suffered economic losses of around Rs1,500 billion ($6.7 billion) on account of [damage to] houses, crops, roads and livestock,” Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said, briefing a group of foreign media journalists in Karachi on Tuesday.
“The estimates show that 3 million houses worth Rs900 billion ($4 billion) have been damaged, while floods have damaged crops worth Rs344.2 billion ($1.5 billion), and the livestock sector has suffered Rs53 billion,” he said, clarifying the figures could vary in the coming days.
KP Finance Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra said the northwestern Pakistani province had likely suffered around $2 billion losses from the floods.
“The economic loss is likely to exceed $1 billion in KP alone,” Jhagra told Arab News. “The losses are expected between $1-2 billion.”
Pakistan’s planning minister, Ahsan Iqbal, on Monday said preliminary estimates had put the nationwide damages at $10 billion.
However, this figure is expected increase after inclusion of damages in Balochistan and Punjab provinces.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah briefs foreign journalists on the devasting monsoon season in Pakistan's southern province in the provincial capital Karachi on September 6, 2022. (AN photo)
Sindh CM Shah said relief goods were being provided to affected people, but the province needed further assistance, including 1 million tents and 4.5 million mosquito nets.
He said floodwater was receding in some districts, however, warned the danger was not over as some districts along the banks of River Indus, including Dadu, Mirpurkhas and Badin, were still under threat.
About the rehabilitation of the affected people, the chief minister said his priorities were to provide shelter to the affectees and dewater the agricultural lands.
“I have to rehabilitate people and clear the lands for sowing of Rabi (winter) crop so that wheat is sown to avoid a famine-like situation in the province,” Shah added.
