Pakistan monsoon rains and floods killed Hundreds of children among 1,000 people
Severe rains and flooding have killed at least 1,033 people, including 348 children, and left 1,527 more injured in Pakistan since mid-June, officials said on Sunday.
The country's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) added that 119 people had died and 71 injured in the last 24 hours alone.
At least 33 million people have been affected by the disaster, Pakistan's Minister for Climate Change, Sherry Rehman, said on Thursday. She called the floods "unprecedented" and "the worst humanitarian disaster of this decade."
"Pakistan is going through its eighth cycle of monsoon while normally the country has only three to four cycles of rain," Rehman said. "The percentages of super flood torrents are shocking."
She highlighted, in particular, the impact on the country's south, adding that "maximum" relief efforts are underway.
The deployment of the army was authorised to assist with relief and rescue operations in flood-stricken areas, the country's Ministry of Interior said in a statement on Friday.
The ministry said troops would assist Pakistan's four provincial governments, including the worst-hit southwestern province of Balochistan.
The exact number of troops as well as where and when they would be deployed would be worked out between the provinces and the government, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, flood relief centres are being established in various parts of the country to assist collection, transportation and distribution of flood relief goods to victims, the Pakistan Armed Forces said.
Army troops are also helping people evacuate to safer places, providing shelter, meals and medical care to those affected by the floods, the armed forces said.
The southern province of Sindh, which the flooding has badly hit, has asked for 1 million tents, while nearby Balochistan province -- primarily cut off from electricity, gas and the internet -- has requested 100,000 tents, Rehman said.
"Pakistan's priority, at the moment, is this climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions," Rehman said, urging the international community to provide aid given Pakistan's "limited" resources.
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