KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s southern Sindh province is bracing for a high flood in the Indus river as the flow of water in eastern rivers has started returning to “normal,” authorities said on Friday, following widespread destruction in the eastern Punjab province.

Punjab, home to more than half of the country’s 240 million people and its main farming belt, has been devastated since late August when record monsoon rains swelled the Ravi, Chenab and Sutlej rivers, killing 97 people and submerging over two million acres of farmland since.

The inflow of water was recorded at 506,433 cusecs at Guddu Barrage on the Indus, 450,150 cusecs at Sukkur Barrage and 259,284 cusecs at Kotri Barrage, according to the Sindh Information Department. The Indus basin is being fed by Punjab’s three eastern rivers, which were swollen by heavy rains and India’s release of excess water since late August.

Sindh provincial authorities were busy evacuating of people and livestock from riverine areas in the province, following a Flood Forecasting Division’s warning of a “very high” flood level in the Indus in the next 24 hours, as the Punjab Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said the flow of water at Panjnad headworks at confluence of Sutlej and Chenab was 679,000 cusecs.

“The flow of rivers in Punjab is returning to normal levels,” the PDMA said in a statement on Friday morning. “All resources are being utilized to protect the lives and property of citizens.”

More than 4,500 villages and over 4.4 million people were affected due to floods in the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers, according to Punjab Relief Commissioner Punjab Nabeel Javed.

“Around 2,451,000 trapped in the floods were shifted to safer places,” he said in a statement shared by the PDMA, adding that provincial authorities had established 396 relief and 490 medical camps in affected districts.

Rescue members transported 1,901,000 animals to safer areas, where 405 veterinary camps have been established to provide treatment facilities to livestock, Javed added.

Meanwhile, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, a former foreign minister and head of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party in Sindh, welcomed the central government’s decision to declare a climate and agricultural emergency in the country, but lamented the delay in issuing an international appeal for assistance.

“The delay by the government to initiate their international appeal for assistance through UN mechanisms is beyond comprehension. This is standard practice for disasters of this scale internationally. It was done for the last floods [in 2022] when I was foreign minister, before that the 2010 floods and the 2005 earthquake,” he said on X.

“Countries all over the world do the same within the first 72 hours of such disasters. There is no excuse to cut of the millions affected from this assistance. We demand the government initiate this process immediately.”

He reiterated his call for the announcement of relief for people in flood-affected districts nationwide through Benazir Income Support Program.

The statement came hours after Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed the climate change ministry draft a 300-day plan within 15 days to mitigate risks from monsoon rains and melting glaciers, state media reported.

Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik said the plan would include preventive measures aimed at reducing losses from the next year’s monsoon season.

“We must act within our own resources, with the support of our civil administration, welfare institutions, and armed forces to safeguard our children and communities,” the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency quoted Malik as saying.

“This is not unique to Pakistan. The entire world is changing, and all nations must wake up to this reality.”

Monsoon season brings Pakistan up to 80 percent of its annual rainfall, but increasingly erratic and extreme weather patterns are turning the annual rains, which are vital for agriculture, food security and the livelihoods of millions of farmers, into a destructive force.

Rains, floods, landslides and similar incidents have killed at least 946 people nationwide since June 26, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The disaster has revived memories of the 2022 deluges, when a third of the country was

submerged, over 1,700 people were killed and losses exceeded $35 billion.

The NDMA has warned the ongoing spell of monsoon rains, the last of this season, is likely to continue for another two days.

Separately on Friday, it urged residents of Islamabad and Rawalpindi to exercise caution as authorities opened spillways of Rawal Dam in the capital to release excess water.

“Water flow in Qur’ang Nala is expected to increase,” it said. “The public is requested to avoid crossing the Nala and temporary bridges built on the Nala in case of rapid water flow.”

Pakistan ranks among the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations and has experienced increasingly erratic, frequent weather events, including heat waves, untimely rains, storms, cyclones and droughts, in recent years, which scientists have blamed on human-driven climate change. In May, at least 32 people were killed in severe storms in the South Asian country.