Category: 1. Pakistan

The ongoing torrential rains and surging floods have inundated large swaths of farmlands and destroyed ready-to-reap crops across Pakistan, triggering fears of a food crisis and inflation, the UN and growers warned on Monday.

The raging floods struck the northeastern Punjab, the country’s largest province and food basket, last week, submerging hundreds of villages, schools and health centres, washing away livestock and destroying crops, aside from killing around 50 people and triggering evacuations.

The surging floods have so far affected more than 2 million people, in addition to the evacuation of more than 700,000 people, according to official statistics.

The water is flowing further south to fall into the mighty Indus River and is feared to wreak havoc on Sindh in the coming days.

“This isn’t normal — yet it’s becoming the new normal. Monsoons, driven by climate change, now bring fear and devastation to communities across Pakistan,” Mo Yahya, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator, said in a post on X, after visiting the flood-hit areas.

“Flooded rice fields stretch as far as the eye can see. Farmers now face months without crops or income until the next planting season,” he said, while posting a video of flooded farmlands in Hafizabad district.

“This is only the beginning — more intense rains are expected in the coming weeks. As the water flows further south, it will threaten more families with displacement and destruction,” Yahya added.

“This is not just another natural disaster; this is climate change.”

Endorsing the warning, Waqar Ahmad, the secretary general of Kisan Board of Pakistan, a nationwide farmers body, said that the catastrophic floods have destroyed the three main crops of rice, sugarcane and sesame (oil-rich seeds) across Punjab.

“Rice crop has particularly taken a toll as the floods have hit the major rice-producing districts,” Rizvi told Anadolu.

According to him, 70 per cent of the standing rice crop has been destroyed by the latest floods.

He cautioned that if neighbouring India releases another deluge of floodwaters towards Pakistan, the remaining amounts of the standing crops will be badly affected.

Waheed Ahmad, the head of Pakistan Fruit and Vegetable Exports Association, fears that the latest floods would likely cause food inflation as massive deluges have destroyed huge amounts of crops and vegetables across Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He urged the government to lift the levy on vegetable and fruit imports from Afghanistan and Iran to cope with the looming food shortages.

ISLAMABAD: Indian dam releases and heavy monsoon rains have raised the risk of major flooding in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, where at least 33 people have died and 2 million have been displaced since last week, officials said on Monday.

Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province and the country’s agricultural heartland, has been inundated by abnormally high monsoon downpours compounded by excess water flowing in from neighboring India. Nationwide, the seasonal rains and floods have killed 854 people since June 26.

“All relevant departments are on alert due to water being released into the Chenab by India,” Irfan Ali Kathia, director general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Punjab, told reporters. “Punjab is monitoring the situation in the rivers round the clock.”

Kathia said the province was mounting the “largest rescue and relief operation” in its history, with food and basic necessities being provided to displaced families.

Punjab Relief Commissioner Nabeel Javed said 506 relief and 352 medical camps had been established in affected areas. More than 17,000 people have received health care, he added, while over 500,000 head of livestock had been shifted to safer locations.

Kathia said a flood wave in the Chenab was moving toward Trimmu Headworks, with flows expected to rise from 479,000 to 700,000 cusecs by Monday evening.

He warned of an “extremely high flood level” at Balloki on the Ravi river, where flows had already surged to 168,000 cusecs. The Sutlej was flowing at 253,000 cusecs, while at Panjnad, the confluence of Punjab’s five rivers, water levels were expected to reach around one million cusecs between Sept. 2–3.

Separately, Pakistan’s commissioner for Indus Waters circulated a letter to government departments citing an Indian High Commission warning of possible “high flood” levels at Harike and Ferozepur on the Sutlej. 

India routinely releases excess water from its reservoirs when they reach capacity, under arrangements governed by the Indus Waters Treaty.

CLIMATE EMERGENCY

Pakistan, ranked among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, has experienced increasingly frequent and erratic weather events in recent years, including heat waves, untimely rains, cyclones and droughts.

Lt. Gen. Inam Haider Malik, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), said Sunday that Pakistan was in a state of climate emergency, with “major natural hazards hitting every two months” and now posing a grave national security threat.

“After every two months, Pakistan is facing a big disaster … and unfortunately this is a part of reality,” Malik told reporters, warning that climate change would intensify in coming years and calling it a “national security” issue for the country. 

The current flooding has revived memories of the catastrophic 2022 deluge, when a third of Pakistan was submerged, more than 1,700 people were killed, 30 million displaced and damages estimated at $35 billion.

India’s engagement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group where China has a central role, may intrigue many in the West. At the same time, for many others, India’s engagement with the SCO is a must to not just secure its national interests, but also to keep the group from becoming a Chinese pawn.

As China observes say, Beijing has long wanted to use the SCO and Brics as a tool in its competition with the United States. Chinese President Xi Jinping has sought to use the SCO and Brics as an extension of the
anti-Western bloc that he has propped with like-minded countries of Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

However, India’s engagement with these groups ensures that these groups remain ’non-Western’ in their character and not ‘anti-Western’, according to Anushka Saxena, a China researcher at the Takshashila Institution.

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India’s influence in Brics as a founding member ensures that the focus remains on economic cooperation and the group does not become a tool in China’s confrontation with the United States.

For example, while US President Donald Trump has threatened Brics nations with tariffs on multiple occasions over concerns of a ‘Brics currency’,
India has categorically stated Brics has no intention of coming up with a Brics currency or undermining the international trade in US dollars. On the other hand, such a system might suit China as it eyes to dominate global trade order. But India’s presence in the Brics ensures that China cannot use Brics to achieve the goal.

‘India is disruptor in China-centric SCO’

India’s engagement with every multilateral group, from G-20 to Quad and SCO, has served a distinct purpose.

While Quad has been critical in balancing Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific, the engagement with SCO and Brics is critical to prevent these institutions from becoming anti-Western blocs. This also highlights the different world views of India and China.

While both India and China engage with developing countries, their approaches are contrasting in nature.

While India sees Global South’s countries as ’non-Western’ and works as a bridge between the developed and the developing world, China seeks to use these countries as part of its ‘anti-West’ agenda. While India seeks a genuine multipolar world where the Global South has a strong place of its own, China is suspected of envisioning another unipolar world where it seeks to replace the United States as the sole superpower and use the Global South as an anti-Western bloc to support such ambitions.

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In an
interview with Firstpost, Saxena earlier said that India’s role as a disruptor is vital in the SCO.

“If China continues to propagate the idea that these groupings are anti-West, India’s presence becomes necessary to maintain the balance and act as a bridge with the West,” said Saxena.

She further said, “In Brics, India’s priorities lie in making sure that principled guidelines are laid out to set benchmarks for membership, in creating space for consensus-building against the possibility of China’s influence-peddling, and in attempting to retain the image and brand value of Brics as a community of developing market economies demanding more voice in global governance.”

Moreover, even though SCO’s counter-terror programme, the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), has appeared a weak mechanism to address India security concerns arising from the challenges of terrorism emerging from Pakistan, an SCO member and a close China ally, New Delhi’s presence in the bloc has enabled it be a voice at the table that counters the dominance of a single nation, which is critical for a country that wishes to build a major power status regionally and globally, said Saxena.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has predicted cloudy weather in Karachi on Monday, with chances of light drizzle in the evening and night.

According to the Met Office, sea breezes have resumed in the city, improving the overall weather conditions. However, due to high humidity, residents may experience discomfort from the heat during the day. The maximum temperature is expected to reach 34°C. Officials clarified that no heavy rainfall is forecast for Karachi this week.

Meanwhile, parts of Punjab already hit by severe floods are likely to face more challenges as heavy to very heavy rainfall is expected from Monday till Wednesday.

The National Emergency Operations Center of the NDMA has issued an alert for Islamabad and multiple districts of Punjab, warning of an intensification of the flood situation.

The flood-hit districts likely to be affected include Lahore, Sialkot, Narowal, Sheikhupura, Chiniot, Sargodha, Bhakkar, Mianwali, and Faisalabad. Other vulnerable areas include Murree, Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Attock, Mandi Bahauddin, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Hafizabad, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sahiwal, Multan, Bahawalnagar, Bahawalpur, and Rahim Yar Khan.

Authorities have cautioned that heavy rains in upper regions, coupled with high river flows, may cause a sharp rise in water levels at Marala Headworks, potentially worsening the flood situation in nearby areas.

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — An army helicopter on a routine flight crashed on Monday in northern Pakistan, killing two pilots and three technicians on board, a government spokesman said.

The helicopter apparently went down in the Gilgit-Baltistan region due to a technical fault and then caught fire, Faizullah Faraq, the regional government spokesman, said. He provided no further details, and said authorities are investigating.

Such crashes are not uncommon in Pakistan. Last month, a helicopter carrying relief supplies to the flood-hit northwestern Bajaur region crashed in bad weather, killing all five people on board. And in September 2024, six people were killed when another helicopter went down in the northwest due to engine failure.