Officials in southern Pakistan have warned more flooding is ahead, with Lake Manchar swelling due to unprecedented monsoon rains that have killed nearly 1,300 people.
The downpours of the past few weeks have left devastation in their wake and been blamed on climate change.
Earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the world to stop “sleepwalking” over the deadly climate crisis.
Flooding reached more than 33 million peoplethat’s one in seven Pakistanis, with satellite images showing the devastation caused by the floods.
Sky News international correspondent Saima Mohsin witnessed the harrowing impact of the floods – in the same part of the country where other floods are believed to be underway:
Over the past week, we’ve tried to report all angles and really communicate what people are going through here.
After their flight, their rescue and their exodus, we wanted to show how people live now. We found a fully displaced neighborhood that traveled from a village near Lake Manchar to Dadu.
It is as if the neighborhood left its homes and settled in a refugee camp. They remain neighbours, they always live at a distance from each other.
Floodwaters besieged their village within minutes in the middle of the night at 3am. And they’ve all traveled here.
Many share their shelters side by side with their livestock – human and animal – each as weak as the other, barely able to stand. But saving their livestock is an important lifeline.
I spotted Firaani Bibi – the wrinkles on her face told her story, with all the dignity and grace of her 96 years.
She tells me how terrifying it was when the water came into her family home in the middle of the night: “We are poor people and it was a mud and brick house.
A wall collapsed on his legs. She is in incredible pain. She’s been sitting on that wooden bed in the hot sun for three weeks. Count on the alms of the inhabitants.
Patiently waiting for something to change. She tells me that all she wants is to go home.
“I almost ran away with my life,” she says.
“The water came like a river. There was so much water that this old woman (referring to herself) was nearly swept away by it. We almost drowned.”
All they have is their goat and its rusty walker.
She looked deep into my eyes and said, “See for yourself, do we have anything?” Nobody gives us anything. Nothing to drink. I am in pain.
“We are worried and suffering. We have no money to buy anything. We’re just sitting here. What can we do ?
Every time we get out of the car, people approach us, some hope we are doctors, some hope we brought food, some ask if we know if the water in their hometown has decrease.
I meet Arbaab Khatun – she is young and confident and tells everyone to let me do my job.
We smile. I shake his hand and introduce myself.
She fled her home with five of her children. Her husband stayed with the older ones. She doesn’t know if they are dead or alive.
Read more:
Men travel 20 miles from the remote town to bring food to their stranded families
‘Nobody came here to help’: Massive Pakistan floods reveal cost of global apathy
She tells me that she wants to show me the state they live in because it’s not right.
“Look at that!” She lifts the tarp which is draped over wooden poles to mimic a tent.
“It’s torn. We don’t even have a real tent. There are holes everywhere, the sun is so strong. I have young children. My youngest got very sick in this heat”
There is a makeshift crib for her toddler. A fabric tied at both ends to poles to form a hammock.
“That’s where the little one sleeps. All we have is the floor. We have nothing. I have these dishes. Nothing else. No food to cook. Everything is empty.”
She throws the empty pots and pans on the floor angrily. In resentment.
She doesn’t want to rely on handouts, but feels she deserves at least more than that.
All they have are the clothes they were wearing when they fled and the few items she showed me.
They have no shoes, his feet are bleeding – wounds from his escape.
Her children are riddled with mosquito bites, their eyes are infected, swollen and red. The youngest, Khadija, is listless and covered in mud.
“We have nothing. We wake up, sit in the sun and go back to sleep. We have no rations, no food, no water – not even a sip of tea. Look!” It shows a terracotta pot on two bricks.
“It’s my pan. But there’s nothing on it. Just an empty chapati pan.”
Some days they eat, others they don’t. When children cry, it breaks my heart and I cry too, she told me. “What else is there to do? What else can we do?”
And then she said something that also broke my heart.
“We are desperate. My little one has resorted to eating mud. We have nothing.”
