The 2022 Floods

From June 2022 unusually intense monsoon rains, on top of an extreme spring heatwave and glacier melt, flooded vast areas of Pakistan. Parts of Sindh became an inland lake for months. The joint Post-Disaster Needs Assessment by the government, UN, World Bank, ADB and EU found that 33 million people were affected, more than 1,700 died, about two million homes were damaged or destroyed, and damage and losses exceeded $30 billion, with reconstruction needs of at least $16.3 billion. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the UN Secretary-General pressed rich countries for help, and at COP27 that November nations agreed to set up a fund for climate “loss and damage”.^•

The poorest suffered most. Farmers in Sindh and southern Punjab lost cotton, rice and date crops and huge numbers of livestock, and standing water brought malaria, dengue and diarrhoeal disease in the months that followed. Schools, roads and bridges were swept away, and the PDNA warned that millions more people could be pushed into poverty.^•

The disaster also exposed old problems: building on floodplains, neglected embankments and drainage, and the slow pace of relief from a state already in an economic crisis. As so often in Pakistan, much of the first help came from neighbours, mosques, volunteers and charities such as the Edhi Foundation, and from relatives abroad sending money home.^•

Why it matters today