By Syed Raza Hassan and Asif Shahzad
Flooded residential areas in Dera Allah Yar, in Pakistan's Balochistan province. Almost a third of the country is under water following months of record monsoon rains that have killed at least 1,300 people. Photo: FIDA HUSSAIN
Pakistani authorities are struggling to prevent the country's biggest lake bursting its banks and inundating nearby towns after unprecedented flooding.
On Monday, Pakistan's National Disaster Management Agency added a further 24 fatalities to its death toll, bringing the total number killed to at least 1314, including 458 children.
The floods, driven by record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in Pakistan's northern mountains, have affected 33 million people, the agency said.
They followed record-breaking summer temperatures and the government and the United Nations have both blamed climate change for the extreme weather and the devastation it has brought.
Authorities on Sunday breached Pakistan's largest freshwater lake, displacing up to 100,000 people from their homes in the hope of draining enough water to stop the lake bursting its banks and swamping more densely-populated areas.
But water levels in the lake, to the west of the Indus River in the southern province of Sindh, remain dangerously high.
"The water level at Manchar lake has not come down," Jam Khan Shoro, the provincial minister for irrigation told Reuters.
He declined to say if another attempt to drain water from the lake would be made.
People displaced by the monsoon floods sit outside their tents at a makeshift camp in Sukkur, Sindh province. Photo: AAMIR QURESHI
The floods have led to a growing humanitarian crisis, with officials especially concerned about the well-being of pregnant women and young mothers.
Over 400,000 pregnant women in badly affected Sindh province have been displaced by the floods, with only 891 making it to relief camps, according to data from the provincial government released on Friday.
The relief effort is a huge burden for an economy already needing help from the International Monetary Fund.
A delegation of three US lawmakers, who visited the flood-hit areas on Sunday to assess the damage and explore ways of assisting Pakistan in its recovery efforts, met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday, his office said.
Sharif told the lawmakers that given the challenges and enormous resources involved in the reconstruction efforts, "continued support, solidarity and assistance from the international community was critical", the office said.
The United Nations has called for $160 million in aid to help the flood victims but Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said the damage was far higher.
"The total damage is close to $10 billion, perhaps more," Ismail said in an interview with CNBC.
"Clearly it is not enough. In spite of meagre resources Pakistan will have to do much of the heavy lifting."
Nevertheless, help kept pouring in with the foreign ministry reporting arrivals of relief flights on Monday from the United Nations and individual countries, including Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.
Elsewhere in the region, floods are also threatening crisis-hit Sri Lanka, while rains have disrupted life in India's technology hub, Bengaluru.
The northern summer is the rainy season across much of Asia.
- Reuters