Iman Salim is used to seeing flood waters in the field of lush lilypads next to her home in the village of Kamanwala. But nothing prepared her for this week, when torrential monsoon rains that broke a 49-year record lashed the area, flooding her house with water that rose above her chest.
“The whole house has drowned. The water left nothing,” the 24-year-old said.
Kamanwala, just outside the city of Sialkot, from where the mountains of Kashmir can be seen on a clear day, is among more than 1,400 villages in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province flooded after three large rivers – the Sutlej, Chenab and Ravi – overflowed their banks because of heavy rain and the release of water from over-full dams in neighbouring India.
The rising waters have brought fears of disease, with the province’s chief minister, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, declaring an emergency in hospitals across Punjab over fears that cholera and hepatitis could spread and an increased risk of poisoning from snake bites.
On Tuesday, the Phalku River, which flows out from India, Kashmir and into Pakistan’s eastern city of Sialkot, also overflowed its banks. In just a few hours, Salim’s family’s entire possessions were destroyed.
In the face of soaring inflation and the depreciation of the rupee, replacing entire life possessions and repairing homes will be impossible for many.
“This is the first time in my life that this much flood water has come,” said Salim’s father, Sayed Muhamad, a 60-year-old labourer. “There’s been no electricity, no water, no gas for three days. The damage that’s been caused is around 500,000 Pakistani rupees [£1,300].”
Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the climate crisis, despite producing less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Flooding is common during monsoon season, which occurs from about July to September every year. But this year’s monsoon rains – made more erratic, unpredictable and deadly by the climate emergency – have unleashed chaos that has left Pakistan and its government scrambling.
New Delhi alerted Islamabad last week to expect cross-border flooding. Since then, nearly 300,000 people have been evacuated from flood areas and Pakistani authorities have been forced to overflow riverbanks after their own dams threatened to burst.
Across the country more than 800 people have been killed in floods since late June – most of them in the north-west Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
An hour away from Sialkot, the Chenab River has risen so high it is almost touching a train track passing over it, and water rushed within a few feet of the base of huge electricity pylons.
Entire villages are lying underwater across the affected areas in Punjab, Pakistan’s breadbasket and home to about half of its 255 million people.
Dr Bilal Siddiq, a senior physician with Sahara Foundation, which has set up a medical camp in Kartarpur village in Jalandhar district to treat those with illnesses caused by a lack of clean water and food, told Associated Press: “Fungal and skin infections are everywhere. We’re also seeing rising cases of diarrhoea, gastric pain and malaria.”
Some flood victims around Sialkot have been left alone to fend for themselves, spending at least two days without food, water and electricity. “No one has come to help us until today,” said Shabana Zubair, 38, who has five children and was without food and water. “Our flour, rice and chickpeas were all spoiled.”
Across the streets and alleys of Naik Wadi Chownk, a rank, fish-like smell hangs in the air. Children play and swim in flood water that has lain stagnant in 30C (86F) heat and mixed with sewage from open drains blocked even before the floods.
Sialkot is home to a thriving entrepreneurial business community who independently raised funds to build what they proudly proclaim as the world’s first privately owned international airport. That same community collectively financed the refurbishment of Sialkot’s roads 25 years ago.
Nevertheless, like many other urban ares in Pakistan, the city has long suffered blocked sewers and a poor waste management system.
In 2021 the Asian Development Bank and regional government embarked on a $250m (£185m) project to replace 30km of sewage pipes in Sialkot and install a sewage pump, but the problems have not gone away.
Khawar Anwar Khawaja, the former chief executive of Sialkot international airport, whose father also built the city’s chamber of commerce, said local authorities bore partial responsibility. “Whenever there was rain, it drained very quickly but over the years, [Sialkot’s drainage system] has rotted because the local government is not playing its role in cleaning, de-silting the drains,” he said. “They’ve got billions of rupees but they’re not doing a proper job.”
Voluntary and community-funded aid deliveries in Sialkot city have quickly sprung up to fill the gap where the government has been slow to react.
A group of 14 volunteers from the charity Sherzan have been delivering cooked food, cartons of milk and water from the back of a truck pulled by a tractor – one of the few vehicles that can safely traverse the flooded alleys and roads of Sialkot and its surrounding villages.
“We have no other option. The [government] doesn’t have full facilities and medication to deal with this,” said 28-year-old Wajahat Mirza, a volunteer who has been working for flood-relief initiatives for the past 15 years. “We can pray, we can do better on our end, but we cannot expect anything from our governments.”
