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Pakistan is scrambling to widen a breach in its biggest lake and keep the waters from overflowing amid unprecedented floods that have inundated almost a third of the South Asian nation.
Key points:
- By breaching the country's largest lake, authorities hope to save surrounding towns and villages
- The plan has come at a cost with 100,000 people downstream from the breach displaced from their homes
- Authorities fear without it, hundreds of thousands more could be affected
The ongoing work around Manchar Lake on Tuesday came as a UN official warned of more misery in store.
As many as 33 million people have been affected, with at least 1,325 dead, including 466 children, in the floods brought by record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in Pakistan's northern mountains, national disaster officials have said.
With yet more rain expected in the coming month, the situation could worsen still further, a top official of the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR) warned.
"We fear the situation could deteriorate," said Indrika Ratwatte, the agency's director for Asia and the Pacific, adding that Pakistan's weather officials forecast more rains for the coming month.
"This will increase challenges for flood survivors, and likely worsen conditions for nearly half a million displaced people, forcing more to abandon their homes."
Lake close to bursting its banks
A key concern was Manchar Lake in Sindh province, which was close to bursting its banks.
"We have widened the earlier breach at Manchar to reduce the rising water level," provincial irrigation minister Jam Khan Shoro told Reuters on Monday.
Already, 100,000 people have been displaced in efforts to keep the lake from overflowing, and if it breaches its banks, it could affect hundreds of thousands more, authorities said.
The region already faces the dangers of water-borne and skin diseases, dengue fever, snake bites and breathing issues, Azra Fazal Pechuho, health minister for the southern province, told a news briefing.
She said 856,000 patients had been treated since flooding began in July, mostly from field and mobile hospitals.
"Over 1200 of our health facilities are under water," she said, adding the field hospitals were receiving nearly 20,000 diarrhoea and 16,000 malaria cases daily.
The World Health Organization has said over 6.4 million people need humanitarian support in the flooded areas.
To help the medicine stocks, Pechuho said, the UNHCR's aid has arrived.
The UNHCR is working with Pakistani authorities to step up humanitarian supplies, Mr Ratwatte added. Three more UN relief flights arrived on Tuesday, foreign ministry said.
Residents propping up dykes
"Till yesterday there was enormous pressure on the dykes of Johi and Mehar towns, but people are fighting it out by strengthening the dykes," district official Murtaza Shah said on Tuesday, adding that 80 per cent to 90 per cent population of the towns had already fled.
Those who remain are attempting to strengthen existing dykes with machinery provided by district officials.
The waters have turned the nearby town of Johi into a virtual island, as a dyke built by locals holds back the water.
"After the breach at Manchar, the water has started to flow, earlier it was sort of stagnant," one resident, Akbar Lashari, said by telephone, following Sunday's initial breach of the lake.
The rising waters have also inundated the nearby Sehwan airport, civil aviation authorities said.
The floods have followed record-breaking summer heat. Pakistan and the United Nations both have blamed climate change for the extreme weather and resulting devastation.
Pakistan has received nearly 190 percent more rain than the 30-year average in July-August, totalling 390.7mm, with the southern Sindh province getting 466 per cent more rain than the average.
Reuters