Pakistan declares emergency as floods hit over 30 million people

Heavy rain has pounded large areas of Pakistan as the government declared an emergency to deal with monsoon flooding it said had affected more than 30 million people.

The annual monsoon is essential for irrigating crops and replenishing lakes and dams across the Indian subcontinent, but each year it also brings a wave of destruction.

Like thousands of others in rural Pakistan, Brohi was seeking shelter next to a national highway, as the elevated roads are among the few dry places to be found.

The disaster agency for Sindh province said 800,000 hectares (2 million acres) of cultivated crops had been wiped out there alone, where many farmers live hand to mouth and season to season.

Pakistan is eighth on the Long-term Global Climate Risk Index, a list compiled by the environmental NGO Germanwatch of countries deemed most vulnerable to extreme weather.

Earlier this year, much of Pakistan was in the grip of a drought and heatwave, with temperatures hitting 51C (124F) in Jacobabad, Sindh province.

The city is grappling with floods that have inundated homes and swept away roads and bridges.

In Sukkur, about 50 miles (75km) away, residents struggled to make their way along muddy streets clogged with flood-borne debris.

Sharif cancelled a planned trip to the UK in order to oversee the flood response, and ordered the army to throw every resource into relief operations.

Almost all of Pakistan has suffered this year, but the worst-hit areas are Balochistan and Sindh in the south and west.

Both provinces have experienced the most disastrous monsoon spell in six decades, respectively recording 522% and 469% more than an average downpour this year.

Images were circulating on social media on Friday of swollen rivers obliterating buildings and bridges along their banks in the mountainous north.

Junaid Khan, deputy commissioner of Swat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told AFP that 14 riverside hotels had been swept away, along with two small hyrdopower stations.

In Chaman, a western frontier town neighbouring Afghanistan, travellers had to wade through waist-high water to cross the border after a nearby dam burst, adding to the deluge brought by rain.

Pakistan Railways said nearby Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, had been cut off and train services suspended after a key bridge was damaged by a flash flood.