Pakistan’s monsoon season is a deadly endurance test for the country. Sharp bursts of intense rainfall can send water gushing down mountains, turn rivers into raging torrents and quickly inundate homes not built to withstand the fury of storms supercharged by the climate crisis.
Floods have claimed the lives of at least 500 people in the country since late June as usually heavy rain batters the country; almost half were children.
Most people drowned or died as their homes collapsed around them, according to the country's National Disaster Management Authority. Those who survive now face the threat of deadly water-borne diseases.
Pakistan, home to around 250 million people, is one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, despite being responsible for only 0.5% of global planet-heating pollution. It faces the double punch of searing heat waves and heavy monsoon rains — this year, both have been relentless.
One of this year’s deadliest monsoon events so far happened last week when more than 180 people died in flash floods over just 24 hours, Pakistan’s national disaster management agency reported Friday. Most deaths happened in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Tragically, this is only one of a series of floods over the past weeks which have led to devastating losses of life.
In mid-July, intense rain pummelled Pakistan’s most populous province of Punjab, engulfing villages and submerging fields.
Nearly 9 inches of rain fell on the city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, turning streets into gushing rivers, inundating homes and businesses and knocking out power for hours in some neighborhoods.
More than 60 people died across the province in just 24 hours, Reuters reported — including dozens in the city of Lahore.
Floods also wreaked havoc across the scenic mountainous region of Gilgit-Baltistan in late July, gouging holes in roads, covering the landscape in thick mud and killing dozens of tourists.
Temperatures in Chilas, a city in Gilgit-Baltistan that sits more than 4,000 feet above sea level, reached 48.5 degrees Celsius, or 119 degrees Fahrenheit, last month.
Pakistan is glacier country and as temperatures soar, these ancient rivers of ice are melting rapidly adding to the flood risks.
In August, a flash flood triggered by a glacial lake outburst — where a lake formed by a melting glacier suddenly releases huge amounts water — damaged the Karakoram Highway in Gilgit-Baltistan, which connects Pakistan and China, and unleashed huge amounts of damage on homes and farms.
It’s not just Pakistan that’s been suffering. Floods in India-administered Kashmir left at least 46 people dead and more than 200 missing in the Himalayan town of Chashoti. Earlier this month, a wall of water tore through the Himalayan village of Dharali in northern India, killing at least four people and leaving dozens missing.
Scientists say the climate crisis is fueling this extreme weather and making it more deadly.
The rainfall Pakistan experienced during the first month of this year’s monsoon season was made about 15% more intense by human-driven climate changeb, according to a rapid analysis study by a group of international scientists published last week.
A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture which can be squeezed out in the form of more intense rain.
“Pakistan is on the frontline of climate change. It is enduring temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) and relentless droughts, wildfires, and catastrophic floods fueled by extreme monsoon rains and rapidly melting glaciers,” said Friederike Otto, a climate science professor at Imperial College London and an author of the analysis.
The country’s 2022 monsoon season was particularly deadly, killing more than 1,700 people, displacing many more from their homes and causing an estimated $40 billion in damages.
“We are at the epicentre of a global climate polycrisis,” said Pakistan’s former climate change and environmental coordination minister in a post on X last month. “But do you see alarm bells ringing? I don’t.”
