BADIN, Sindh: Every spell of heavy rain brings back the same fear for Mariyam as she wonders whether another flood could wash away the fragile life she has spent the past four years rebuilding after Pakistan’s devastating 2022 monsoon.
The 35-year-old farmer lost her house and four animals in the floods. As another monsoon gathers strength this year, she fears even the little she has managed to rebuild could disappear, including the small goat she recently bought with borrowed money to help feed her children.
“I am very afraid. I feel very helpless. I have small children, and we live in constant fear,” Mariyam, who goes by a single name like many women in rural Sindh, told Arab News.
“We just bought a small goat with a loan. If anything happens to it, I will be left in debt,” she added.
Mariyam’s fears are shared by many in Badin, one of Sindh’s most flood-prone districts, where low-lying villages remain vulnerable to heavy rains and embankment breaches along the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD), a major drainage system built to carry excess water away from farmland.
Pakistan’s climate vulnerability has made such anxieties increasingly common, with intense monsoon rains, flash floods, glacier melting and droughts repeatedly affecting agricultural livelihoods.
This year’s monsoon has already turned deadly.
According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), rain-related incidents have killed at least 23 people, injured 90 others, damaged 115 houses and killed 163 animals across Pakistan since June 26.
The government’s Emergency Response Committee last week reviewed monsoon preparedness and warned that “shrinking glaciers and increasing droughts/dry monsoon in most part of Pakistan are likely to trigger stress situation for agriculture sector leading to gross food security hazard.”
Agriculture contributes 23 percent to Pakistan’s gross domestic product, but the sector has become increasingly exposed to climate shocks.
Pakistan’s five major crops recorded combined growth of just 0.7 percent in the last fiscal year, according to the Economic Survey 2025-26, even as cotton and maize production declined by 3 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.
For Mariyam, however, the greatest fear is not the rain itself but what happens when the drainage system overflows.
“If the embankment breaches, our village will be flooded and our home will be damaged,” she said.
Her house has still not been fully rebuilt.
“We are poor and work as daily wage laborers,” she said. “We struggle to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.”
“Only we know how we have managed to survive,” she added.
Other residents of Badin’s flood-prone villages describe the same cycle of destruction.
Neelam, a 30-year-old farmer from Hajji Ali Muhammad Khoso village, said repeated flooding destroys farmland, kills livestock and deepens poverty. She and her husband, Mevo, have planted rice on two acres.
“The floods hit us, ruin our agricultural land and kill our animals. The losses are huge,” she said while working in her fields.
Mevo, 35, said floodwaters regularly submerge entire fields.
“The floods hit here and submerge all the land. They don’t leave any space on this land dry,” he said.
For shepherd Muhammad Urs, 40, from Hajji Khaskheli village, protecting livestock remains a constant struggle during the monsoon. He owns 70 cows and 120 sheep and goats.
“When it rains, we move our animals into tents,” he said. “But if a storm strikes, the tents can collapse and the animals die. Sometimes, by the grace of Allah Almighty, they survive.”
“We did not lose any animals during the most recent floods, but we suffered heavy losses in the floods of 2011 and 2022.”
Development workers say the region’s vulnerability is rooted not only in poverty but also in inadequate flood protection infrastructure.
Zareen, a human resource development officer at the government-backed Sind Rural Support Organization (SRSO), said reinforcing the embankments along the Left Bank Outfall Drain was among the communities’ most urgent needs.
“The most difficult thing for them is that their riverbanks should be made concrete and stronger,” she said. “When the drain is full, the flood water flows into the village.”
Zareen said communities most urgently needed their drainage canal to be reinforced with concrete.
She added SRSO is preparing a new German-backed project through Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) for flood-affected communities, without elaborating on its scope or timeline.
For Mariyam, though, long-term plans offer little comfort as another monsoon gathers strength.
She wants the government to repair the embankment and help families like hers rebuild their lives.
“I appeal to the government to repair this embankment,” she said.
“We need assistance to rebuild our home, or financial support to start a small business so that we can provide for our children.”
