A child is one of millions to have fled the flash flooding
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)More than 1,000 people have been killed and 33 million have been impacted by devastating floods in Pakistan.
Early estimates put the damage from the unprecedented flooding at more than $10bn with monsoon rains washing away roads, crops, infrastructure and bridges.
The climate change minister has called the situation a “climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.”
“I think it is going to be huge. So far, (a) very early, preliminary estimate is that it is big, it is higher than $10 billion,” Ahsan Iqbal told Reuters in an interview.
“So far we have lost 1,000 human lives. There is damage to almost nearly one million houses,” Iqbal said at his office.
“People have actually lost their complete livelihood.”
The floods are thought to be worse than those in 2010, for which the UN issued its largest ever disaster appeal.
To mitigate food shortfalls, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said the country could consider importing vegetables from arch-rival India.
The two neighbouring countries have not had any trade for a long time.
“We can consider importing vegetables from India,” Ismail told local Geo News TV, adding other possible sources of food imports included Turkey and Iran.
Social media users posted videos showing stranded people and whole families washed away by floodwater.
Southern, southwestern and northern Pakistan have been the hardest hit by the floods, which have swept large swaths of farmland and stored crops, also isolating the regions from rest of the country for the last several days.
Tens of thousands of families have left their homes for safer places, moved in with their relatives, or to state-run camps, while others have been spending nights in the open, waiting for help including tents, food and medicine.
