KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s southern Sindh province was on high alert on Tuesday as authorities warned of a looming “super flood” with surging Indus River flows, even as officials confirmed 60 deaths and more than four million people affected in the breadbasket province of Punjab since late August.
Sindh’s government has stepped up emergency measures as floodwaters rush downstream from Punjab’s three eastern rivers, the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej, swollen by weeks of heavy monsoon rains and controlled water releases from Indian dams. Authorities in India typically release water to manage reservoir levels during heavy rains.
The torrents are now merging into the Indus, Pakistan’s longest river, threatening towns, farmland and infrastructure in Sindh before the waters empty into the Arabian Sea.
Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro said the province had “made preparations for a super flood” and was reinforcing weak embankments after inspecting flood defenses on Monday. He said the Kashmore-Kandhkot embankment, located in northern Sindh near the border with Punjab, was “strong” and not at risk.
“The water will reach Guddu Barrage by tomorrow [Tuesday],” Shoro said, adding that some flows had already been diverted to the sea.
Residents stand at an embankment as they wait to be rescued from a flooded area, following monsoon rains and rising water levels of the Chenab River, in Jalalpur Pirwala, Punjab province, Pakistan, on September 8, 2025. (REUTERS)
The Provincial Disaster Management Authority separately warned that “severe urban flooding is likely in major cities of Sindh province until Sept. 10,” forecasting flash floods in Dadu, Jamshoro and Kambar Shahdadkot, three districts in central Sindh.
It said exceptionally high flows would continue in the Sutlej River at Ganda Singh Wala, a village near Pakistan’s border with India, due to releases from upstream Indian reservoirs.
According to Sindh’s Rain and Flood Emergency Monitoring Cell, 143,789 people have been displaced between Aug. 28 and Sept. 9. The report said 528 relief camps and 159 medical camps had been set up since late August, where around 50,394 patients had been treated.
The provincial government has also established 111 livestock camps and evacuated 1,526 animals from high-risk areas in the past 12 hours. Since Aug. 28, Sindh has evacuated 390,466 livestock in total and treated and vaccinated 985,557 animals, including 10,732 in the past 24 hours.
PUNJAB
The National Disaster Management Authority said in its latest update that the nationwide death toll from rains and floods since the monsoon season began on June 26 had reached 922.
Punjab, the country’s most populous province and agricultural heartland, has borne the brunt of the devastation in the latest spell of rain, which started in late August.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Relief Commissioner Nabeel Javed said flooding in the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab had affected 4.2 million people across more than 4,300 villages.
“A total of 2.163 million people have been shifted to safer places,” he said, adding that 417 relief camps, 498 medical camps and 431 veterinary camps were operating in flood-hit districts. Around 1.579 million animals had been evacuated.
Javed confirmed that 60 people had died and said compensation would be provided on the instructions of Punjab’s chief minister.
He also noted that Mangla Dam in Azad Jammu and Kashmir was 89 percent full, Tarbela Dam in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was at 100 percent, while India’s Bhakra Dam on the Sutlej was 90 percent full, Pong Dam 99 percent and Thein Dam 97 percent.
According to the Punjab disaster authority, water levels on the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers remain dangerously high, with flows in places exceeding 250,000 cubic feet per second. The agency warned of continuing high flooding on the Sutlej due to releases from Indian dams, and of possible flash floods in southern Punjab districts such as Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur.
Further downstream, at Panjnad, where the Ravi, Chenab and Sutlej converge before meeting the Indus, flows were close to 400,000 cusecs. On the Indus itself, inflows at Sindh’s Guddu Barrage, a major control point, had reached 443,000 cusecs and were rising, with officials warning the barrage could face up to 800,000 cusecs in the coming days.
