‘Everything is gone’: Punjabi farmers suffer worst floods in three decades

Floods in the Pakistani province of Punjab have submerged 4,000 villages and led to the evacuation of 2 million people. Photograph: Mansoor Abbas/EPA

For days, farmers in the Indian state of Punjab watched the pounding monsoon rains fall and the rivers rise with mounting apprehension. By Wednesday, many woke to find their fears realised as the worst floods in more than three decades ravaged their farms and decimated their livelihoods.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of bright green rice paddies – due to be harvested imminently – as well as crops of cotton and sugar cane were left destroyed as they became fully submerged in more than five feet of muddy brown flood waters. The bodies of drowned cattle littered the ground.