In Punjab province, all three main rivers overflowed concurrently, for the primary time within the nation’s historical past.
Printed On 30 Aug 2025
Almost half one million individuals have been displaced by flooding in japanese Pakistan after days of heavy rain swelled rivers, in keeping with rescue officers, who’ve been finishing up an enormous rescue operation because the nation struggles with a monsoon season of devastation.
In accordance with an announcement launched Saturday by the Punjab Catastrophe Administration Authority (PDMA), 835 individuals have died within the monsoon since June 26, with 195 in Punjab province alone.
Three transboundary rivers that minimize by way of Punjab, which borders India, have swollen to exceptionally excessive ranges, affecting greater than 2,300 villages.
The regional Punjab authorities has initiated managed breaches of key flood bunds to divert surging waters from the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers. All three main rivers overflowed concurrently, for the primary time within the nation’s historical past, in keeping with native media.
Nabeel Javed, the pinnacle of the Punjab authorities’s aid companies, stated on Saturday that 481,000 individuals stranded by the floods have been evacuated, together with 405,000 livestock.
Total, greater than 1.5 million individuals have been affected by the flooding.
“That is the most important rescue operation in Punjab’s historical past,” Irfan Ali Khan, the pinnacle of the province’s catastrophe administration company, stated at a information convention.
He stated greater than 800 boats and 1,300 rescue personnel have been concerned in evacuating households from affected areas, largely in rural areas close to the banks of the three rivers.
‘No human life left unattended’
The newest spell of monsoon flooding for the reason that begin of the week has killed 30 individuals, Khan stated, with a number of hundred left useless all through the heavier-than-usual season that started in June.
“No human life is being left unattended. Every kind of rescue efforts are persevering with,” Khan stated.
Greater than 500 aid camps have been set as much as present shelter to households and their livestock.
Farmer Safdar Munir within the metropolis of Kasur stated the floods took away his crops and all his belongings.
“So, we’re pulling out our cattle as there is no such thing as a fodder to feed our livestock. We have now acquired no assist from the federal government,” he informed Al Jazeera.
Abid, one other farmer, stated: “The water got here and destroyed all the things. It’s with nice issue that I may save my livestock. My farm and crops are all underwater.”
Within the impoverished city of Shahdara, on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Lahore, dozens of households have been gathered in a college after fleeing the rising water of their houses.
Rains continued all through Saturday, together with in Lahore, the nation’s second-largest metropolis, the place a whole housing growth was half submerged by water.
The Pakistan Meteorological Division (PMD) forecast new rounds of widespread rain, wind and thunderstorms throughout a number of areas.
In mid-August, greater than 400 Pakistanis have been killed in a matter of days by landslides brought on by torrential rains on the opposite aspect of the nation, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, near Afghanistan and the one province held by the opposition to the federal authorities.
In 2022, unprecedented monsoon floods submerged a 3rd of Pakistan, with the southern province of Sindh the worst-affected space.
