For months Pakistan has been suffering from economic and political crises. Now a terrible natural disaster is increasing the pain
Over the past two months the heaviest rainfall on record has inundated vast swathes of Pakistan, devastating cities and farmland. Over 1,100 people have been killed, and early estimates put the costs at $10bn. One-third of the country is underwater; the government has declared 72 out of 160 districts to be disaster zones.
The volume of rainfall is staggering. Some 700mm have been dumped on the south-eastern province of Sindh, nearly six times the 30-year annual average. Balochistan, a vast, arid province normally untouched by the monsoon, has received five times its annual average. The resultant flooding already appears to be the worst in decades. Massive floods in 2010 cost an estimated $10bn, mostly in rural areas. This time cities are also badly afflicted.
City-dwellers tend to be less reluctant to leave their flooded homes than people living on the land. That means the death toll this year may end up lower than the 2,000 people who died during the disaster in 2010. Yet the economic fallout from the floods—which are estimated to have affected one in seven Pakistanis or 33m people—will be immense. Inflation, which touched 25% in July, will rise further as food crops are wiped out.
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