Pakistan minister: 1/3 of the country under water from monsoon floods

SUKKUR, Pakistan — Tens of millions of people across swaths of Pakistan are battling the worst monsoon floods in a decade, with countless homes washed away, vital farmland destroyed, and the country’s main river threatening to burst its banks.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman says a third of the country is underwater, creating a “crisis of unimaginable proportions.”

Officials say 1,136 people have died since June when the seasonal rains began, but the final toll could be higher as hundreds of villages in the mountainous north have been cut off after flood-swollen rivers washed away roads and bridges.

The annual monsoon is essential for irrigating crops and replenishing lakes and dams across the Indian subcontinent, but it can also bring destruction.

This year’s flooding has affected more than 33 million people — one in seven Pakistanis — according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

“It’s all one big ocean, there’s no dry land to pump the water out,” Rehman tells AFP, adding the economic cost would also be devastating.

This year’s floods are comparable to those of 2010 — the worst on record — when more than 2,000 people died.