The death toll from gushing floods across Pakistan has reached 1,343, with 18 more fatalities reported in the past 24 hours, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said in its report on Tuesday.
According to the NDMA report, 1343 people including 591 men, 269 women and 474 children have lost their lives due to rains and floods across the country since June 14.
According to NDMA most of the fresh fatalities, 14, were reported from Sindh province, where a water spillover from Manchar Lake, the country’s largest freshwater lake, is posing a serious threat to at least five districts.
The report said with the latest casualties, the overall tally in the province has reached 536 since mid-June.
A total of 290 people have died in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since June mid-June, followed by 260 fatalities in Balochistan while 191 people have died in Punjab, it added.
The report said that 12,720 people have been injured since mid-June with 8,321 in Sindh, 3,858 in Punjab, 361 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 164 have been injured in Balochistan.
Flooding from unprecedented rains has inundated one-third of the country, prompting the government to issue an international appeal.
Constant rains and raging floods have already destroyed a large chunk of the country’s infrastructure and agricultural land, including hundreds of thousands of houses, roads, and bridges, as well as washing away over 750,000 animals.
The NDMA said that 560,789 houses across the country were completely destroyed while 1,132,000 houses were partially damaged.
Almost 45% of the cropland has already been inundated by the floods, posing a serious threat to food security and adding further to already skyrocketing inflation.