Death toll from floods in Pakistan rises to 1,638

ISLAMABAD (AA) – The death toll from floods in Pakistan has risen to 1638 with deaths of 42 more people across the country.

Since mid-June, 12,865 have also been wounded in weather-related accidents, according to the country’s National Disaster Management Authority’s (NDMA) latest data.

So far, 824,169 houses have been completely destroyed while over 1.22 million houses are partially damaged across the South Asian country.

The number of livestock that perished during the devastating floods also rose to 1.10 million, according to NDMA.

So far, Pakistan has received 126 flights of humanitarian aid from Türkiye, the UAE, China, Russia, the US, the UK, Uzbekistan, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, Nepal, Turkmenistan, UNICEF, UNHCR, and the World Food Program.

The destructive floods affected millions of people in 84 districts across the country and thousands of them are living in tents.

Monsoon season in Pakistan, like in other countries in the region, usually results in heavy rains, but this year has been the wettest since 1961.

Currently, one-third of the country is under water as the massive rains and melting glaciers have caused the country’s main Indus River to overflow, inundating vast swathes of farmland.

Destructive rains and floods have also washed away 12,716 kilometers (7,901 miles) of roads, 374 bridges and buildings across the South Asian nuclear country, which is already grappling with political and economic turmoil.

Over 33 million of the country’s approximately 220 million population have been affected by the raging floods, causing a staggering loss of over $30 billion in damages to an already weakened infrastructure.

Almost 45% of the country’s cropland has already been inundated by the floods, posing a serious threat to food security and further adding to the already skyrocketing inflation.