Concern Worldwide Launches Emergency Response to the Pakistan Floods

Concern Worldwide is responding to the devastating floods sweeping across Pakistan, which have affected over 33 million people and destroyed millions of acres of food crops.

The monsoon floods have so far resulted in over 1,000 deaths, including 348 children, and destroyed and damaged close to 1 million homes, 149 bridges, 2,144 miles of roads – though it is possible many of these figures are very under-reported since many areas have low accessibility and communication lines are down.

“We are responding to a very serious humanitarian situation with a significantly high number of deaths and the numbers continuing to rise every hour,” said Concern Worldwide’s Pakistan acting Country Director, Sherzada Khan.

Many have lost their homes and livelihoods with the province of Sindh alone having 4.5 million people displaced. The magnitude and scale of the destruction to the country cannot be overstated.

As one of the top ten countries severely hit by climate change-induced disasters, the floods in Pakistan come at a time when the country was already coping with one of the worst economic crises in its history with high inflation and food and fuel prices rocketing.

The Pakistan government has declared a national emergency and Sherry Rehman, a senator and Pakistan’s climate change minister, called the monsoon flooding “a serious climate catastrophe.”

Our teams are responding in provinces of Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab providing relief packages to people trying to survive this crisis.

Multi-purpose cash assistance will be provided to enable extremely vulnerable families to buy essential items, such as food, medicine, and makeshift tents.

Concern is also providing emergency hygiene and dignity kits, which contain items like soap and menstrual pads, to help protect the health of the population at risk.

As the flooding worsens, Concern continues to assess the needs of those affected with a particular focus on the destruction of millions of acres of crops in what are already very vulnerable communities. Around 90% of agricultural land in the areas where Concern operates is currently submerged in water and over 720,000 animal livestock have reportedly perished.

Concern’s Regional Director for Asia, Lucia Ennis, said Concern has over twenty years experience working in Pakistan and responding to emergencies and she said the devastation and enormity of this disaster as it unfolds will require a huge international response.

 “The Concern team and our partners on the ground have already mobilized and are scaling up their humanitarian emergency response,” she said.  “It is difficult to put into words the scale and enormity of this destruction that our teams are witnessing, but it is extremely critical these communities get our help.”

“These floods are caused by weeks of very extreme monsoon rainfall and glacier melting and they have come at a time when Pakistan was already trying to cope with one of the worst economic crisis in its history with high inflation and food and fuel prices rocketing.”

“Pakistan ranks as among the top ten countries severely hit by climate change induced disasters. The rainfall this year is almost three times higher than the national 30-year average.”