Maxar Technologies, a US-based space technology company, has released satellite imagery of Pakistan’s floods, showing the extent of their devastating impact on the terrain.
According to the details, around one-third of the country is submerged due to horrific monsoon rains that began in June and killed and displaced thousands of people.
The images also show agricultural land turning into mud trenches in various areas of the country.
Following are the before and after satellite images of various parts of Pakistan:
Gudpur, Punjab
This image shows the current situation of Gudpur village in Dera Ghazi (DG) Khan. The entire village is inundated by the raging floods that left only minimum trails of dry land.
Rajanpur, Punjab
The space-tech company also shared images of the floods in Rajanpur where farmlands were submerged by the Indus River, resulting in severe damage to crops and livestock.
Rojhan, a small town in Rajanpur, was completely swamped by the nearby river, as shown in the satellite imagery.
Kabul River Near Charsadda, KP
Planet Labs, an American Earth Imaging company, also released a couple of satellite images that showed the expansion of the Kabul River near Charsadda in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) due to the monsoon-induced floods.
Balochistan and Sindh received 410 percent and 466 percent above average rainfall respectively between June and August, and around a million houses and 3,379.6 km of roads have been destroyed in the country, as per official figures.
Sindh’s Minister for Health, Dr. Azra Fazal Pechuho, reported that the authorities have established around 4,120 medical camps across the province (which is Pakistan’s worst-affected) to treat the affectees who are suffering from various skin and waterborne diseases.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif dubbed the recent floods the “worst in Pakistan’s history” and asked the international community to provide assistance. The Federal Minister for Planning and Development, Ahsan Iqbal, claimed that the country requires $10 billion to recover from the destruction.
The UN has issued an urgent request for $160 million in aid in response to the unprecedented climate disaster in the country.
Furthermore, the WHO’s Representative in Pakistan, Dr. Palitha Mahipala, stated “Our key priorities now are to ensure rapid access to essential health services to the flood-affected population, strengthen and expand disease surveillance, outbreak prevention, and control, and ensure robust health cluster coordination”.
