Unprecedented flooding in the country during monsoon season has left at least 1,265 people dead
Pakistan has appealed to the international community for an “immense humanitarian response” to unprecedented flooding that has left at least 1,265 people dead.
According to initial government estimates, the rain and flooding have caused $10bn (£8.7bn) in damage.
Continue reading...Rights groups say Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled in July amid protests, should be brought to justice on a number of charges
The deposed Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa is facing calls for his arrest after returning home from self-imposed exile under the protection of the government that took charge when he fled.
Rajapaksa fled the island country under military escort in July when a huge crowd stormed his official residence after months of angry demonstrations against his government.
Continue reading...Rajapaksa touched down in Colombo seven weeks after he fled the extraordinary protests triggered by an economic meltdown that many lay at his feet
Sri Lanka’s former president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country in July after tens of thousands of protesters stormed his home and office in a display of anger over the country’s economic crisis, has returned to the country after seven weeks.
Rajapaksa flew into Colombo’s Bandaranaike international airport early on Saturday from Bangkok via Singapore. After being welcomed by lawmakers in his party, Rajapaksa left the airport in a motorcade heavily guarded by armed soldiers.
Continue reading...Vicky Bowman and Htein Lin were arrested last week accused of violating immigration laws
Britain’s former ambassador to Myanmar and her husband, a prominent artist, have been sentenced to one year in prison by the country’s military-controlled courts, reports say.
Vicky Bowman, who was the ambassador in Myanmar from 2002 to 2006, and her husband, Htein Lin, a veteran democracy activist, were arrested last week in Yangon and accused of violating immigration laws.
Continue reading...Planes bring food, medicine and tents to disaster zone, with officials blaming floods on climate change
Planes carrying fresh supplies are forming a humanitarian air bridge to flood-ravaged Pakistan as the death toll passed 1,200, officials have said with families and children at special risk of disease and homelessness.
The ninth flight from the United Arab Emirates and the first from Uzbekistan were the latest to land in Islamabad overnight as a military-backed rescue operation elsewhere in the country reached more of the 3 million people affected by the disaster.
Continue reading...Humanitarian workers expect conditions to worsen as monsoon rains continue and say millions face a terrible winter
Aid workers have appealed for urgent donations to fight the “absolutely devastating” impact of flooding in Pakistan, as new satellite images appeared to confirm that a third of the country is now underwater.
As the UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) launched an appeal to raise funds for the 33 million people affected, the European Space Agency released stark images based on data captured by its Copernicus satellite.
Continue reading...Disasters and Emergency Committee urges British public to give whatever they can
An urgent appeal has been launched by the Disasters Emergency Committee for donations in Pakistan, where at least 1,000 people have been killed by floods described as the worst in the country’s history.
“The scale of these floods has caused a shocking level of destruction – crops have been swept away and livestock killed across huge swathes of the country,” said the DEC’s chief executive, Saleh Saeed.
Continue reading...Funding still needs to be approved but could offer breathing space amid country’s economic turmoil
The International Monetary Fund has tentatively offered Sri Lanka a $2.9bn (£2.5bn) loan to help the country recover from the worst economic crisis since it gained independence from Britain in 1948.
The funding is meant to provide some breathing space for Sri Lanka, which is scrambling to restructure nearly $30bn in debt to creditors including China, India and a string of international banks.
Continue reading...Diarrhoea and malaria cases spread, with risk of dysentery and cholera, as millions of displaced people forced to drink flood water
Health officials have warned of large-scale outbreaks of disease in Pakistan after severe flooding displaced millions of people.
A rise in cases of diarrhoea and malaria has been reported after months of heavy rains left people stranded and without access to clean water.
Continue reading...More than 1,100 people have been killed in flooding described by Pakistan PM Shebaz Sharif as worst in country’s history
New satellite images show the extent of the devastation caused by catastrophic flooding and rains in Pakistan.
The images, from Planet Labs and Maxar, show swaths of green fields, villages and buildings before monsoonal rains and flooding began lashing the country in June.
Continue reading...Sharif’s climate change minister called the flooding a ‘climate catastrophe’ and said the south Asian nation was ‘paying the price’ for western use of fossil fuels
Pakistan is not to blame for a climate crisis-fuelled disaster that has flooded much of the country, the prime minister has said, as he made a desperate plea for international help in what he said was the “toughest moment” in the nation’s history.
“We are suffering from it but it is not our fault at all,” Shehbaz Sharif told journalists on Tuesday afternoon at a press conference where his climate change minister referred to the flooding as a “climate catastrophe”.
Continue reading...Call for emergency funding as nearly half a million people displaced and estimated $10bn damage to economy
The United Nations and Pakistan are to appeal for $160m (£135m) in emergency funding for the nearly half a million people displaced by record-breaking floods that have killed more than 1,150 people since mid-June.
Large areas remain underwater and more than 33 million people, or one in seven Pakistanis, have been affected by the floods. Rescuers have been evacuating stranded people to safer ground.
Continue reading...The climate crisis is the prime suspect, but the vulnerability of poor citizens and other factors are important too
The climate crisis is the prime suspect for the devastating scale of flooding in Pakistan, which has killed more than 1,000 people and affected 30 million. But the catastrophe, still unfolding, is most likely the result of a lethal combination of factors including the vulnerability of poor citizens, steep mountainous slopes in some regions, the unexpected destruction of embankments and dams, and some natural climate variation.
The horrific scale of the floods are not in doubt. “We are witnessing the worst flooding in the history of the country,” said Dr Fahad Saeed, a climate scientist with the Climate Analytics group, who is based in Islamabad.
Continue reading...PM vows government will not disappoint flood victims as economic losses estimated at more than $10bn
There are growing fears for people living in communities in Pakistan cut off by devastating flooding caused by unusually strong monsoon rains, as damage to major roads hampers the military-led relief effort.
On a visit to a badly flooded area in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday, the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, described the rains as “unprecedented in the last 30 years”. “I have never seen such devastation in my life,” he said, vowing that his government “won’t disappoint” flood victims.
Continue reading...Foreign minister urges countries and IMF to help stricken country after climate change minister speaks of climate ‘catastrophe’
Pakistan’s government has appealed for international help to tackle a flooding emergency that has killed more than 1,000 people and threatens to leave a third of the country – an area roughly the size of Britain – underwater.
Foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said on Sunday night that floods brought on by weeks of extreme monsoonal rainfall and melting glaciers would worsen Pakistan’s already dire economic situation and that financial aid was needed.
Continue reading...Accusation is reportedly the first time the Indian government has used the descriptor and comes as tensions rise over Sri Lanka port visit
India has accused China of “militarisation of the Taiwan Strait”, in an escalating war of words triggered by a Chinese military ship docking in a controversial Sri Lankan port.
The accusation, referenced in a statement by the Indian high commission in Sri Lanka on Sunday, is reportedly the first time the Indian government has used the descriptor, and is a rare intervention on the cross-straits issues as India contends with tensions on its own border with China.
Continue reading...With their homes destroyed by worst flooding in living memory, people in Jaffarabad appeal for help
In the midst of swamps of flood water, hundreds of people who fled one of the worst-hit districts of Pakistan pitched tents on the only high ground they could find – on the raised banks of the Saifullah Magsi canal.
They had left the Jaffarabad region of Pakistan’s impoverished Balochistan province as a monsoon deluge that authorities say has claimed more than 1,000 lives since June swept away their homes and livelihoods. The Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, visiting Jaffarabad on Sunday, was told that at least 75% of Balochistan, which covers half of Pakistan’s land area, was partially or completely affected by flooding.
Continue reading...Court-ordered demolition of 850 flats seen as stern warning to developers amid rampant illegal construction
Indian authorities have demolished two illegally constructed skyscrapers in a wide plume of dust debris outside Delhi, razing the tallest structures ever pulled down in the country in less than 10 seconds.
Crowds watching the collapse from rooftops on nearby high-rise buildings cheered and clapped as the 103 metre (338ft) tall towers collapsed during a controlled demolition.
Continue reading...Flash flooding from ‘monster monsoon’ washes away villages and crops and leaves thousands homeless
A Pakistani minister has called the country’s deadly monsoon season “a serious climate catastrophe” and “a climate dystopia at our doorstep” as officials said deaths from widespread flooding in Pakistan had passed 1,000 since mid-June.
Flash floods, which have intensified in recent days, have swept away villages, roads, bridges, people, livestock and crops across all four provinces. Pakistan has appealed for international help as soldiers and rescue workers have evacuated stranded people to relief camps and provided food to thousands of displaced people.
Continue reading...Demonstrators demand Gujarat government revoke decision on men convicted over rape of Muslim woman Bilkis Bano in 2002
Hundreds of people have held demonstrations in several parts of India to protest against a recent government decision to free 11 men who had been jailed for life for gang raping a Muslim woman during India’s 2002 religious riots.
The protesters in the country’s capital, New Delhi, chanted slogans on Saturday and demanded the government in the western state of Gujarat rescind the decision. They also sang songs in solidarity with the victim.
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