Officials said on Friday that planes carrying fresh supplies are flying over a humanitarian air bridge to flood-damaged Pakistan, where more than 1,200 people have died. Families and children are especially at risk of getting sick and being without a home.
Overnight, the last flights to arrive in Islamabad were the first flight from Uzbekistan and the ninth flight from the United Arab Emirates. This was because more of the 3 million disaster victims were being helped elsewhere in the country by a military-backed rescue effort.
The Foreign Ministry said that a train from Turkey was on its way to the poor country with aid for flood victims. Also, two more planes from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar will land in Pakistan later on Friday. They will bring more aid.
Climate change is being blamed for the unusual monsoon and flooding by many officials and scientists, including U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who told the world this week not to “sleepwalk” through the terrible event.
Guterres will go to Pakistan on September 9 to meet with officials and see areas that have been hurt by floods.
The government’s first guess is that the damage will cost $10 billion.
In a joint statement earlier this week, Pakistan and the UN asked for $160 million in emergency aid to help the 3.3 million people who have been hurt by the floods, which have destroyed more than 1 million homes.
Even though the answer to the question was “”We need more help,” the U.N. agency for refugees said on Friday. “The situation is very good.”
Matthew Saltmarsh, a spokesman for the UNHCR, said that they are giving flood victims immediate access to tents, blankets, plastic sheets, buckets, and other things they need for their homes.
Planes brought more food, medicine, and tents to the people. Shahbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, was supposed to go to the areas of his country that were hit by flooding on Saturday, but he decided to put off the trip.
China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, and a few other countries have all helped Pakistan so far.
The head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, Gen. Michael Kurilla, called the head of the Pakistani army, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, on Friday to show his sympathy. Central Command said that it will send an evaluation team to Islamabad to figure out what kind of help it can give.
This week, the United States said it would help flood victims with $30 million.
Scientists and experts say that since 1959, Pakistan has only put out 0.5% of the world’s heat-trapping carbon dioxide, compared to 21.5% for the United States and 16.4% for China. Officials and experts in Pakistan say that the average rainfall in some parts of the country has gone up by 400%, which is what caused the unprecedented flooding.
Ammar Malik, a research scientist at AidData at the College of William & Mary in the United States, said that global warming had made the floods worse by increasing the melting of glaciers in the summer and the annual monsoon. This balance can be thrown off by anything out of the ordinary, such as higher-than-normal temperatures caused by climate change. This, the scientist said, will lead to strange weather patterns.
Authorities told people in the southern Sindh province’s Dadu district on Friday to move to safer areas before the swollen Indus river is expected to flood this week.
Some parts of Pakistan’s Sindh province had the hottest weather in May. There are floods there right now, which has led to a lot of people getting sick from the water. Even though most of the floodwaters in the country were still going down, many Sindhi districts were still under water.
Farah Naureen, who is in charge of Mercy Corps’ work in Pakistan, says that about 73,000 women will give birth in the next month. These women need skilled birth attendants, privacy, and places to give birth.
The military says that rescue efforts began again early on Friday. They use boats and helicopters to help people in faraway places and get them out of danger.
Since the middle of June, floods have also killed more than 700,000 goats, cows, and buffalo and destroyed crops. In order to keep from running out of food, the Pakistani government had to import vegetables. Pakistan is also talking to Russia about getting wheat from there.
