Karachi:
The ongoing torrential rains and increasing floods have flooded large frips of farmland and have destroyed crops ready to reimburse in Pakistan, which caused fears of a food crisis and inflation, the UN and the producers warned on Monday.
Furious floods hit the northeast of Punjab, the province and largest food basket in the country, last week, immersing hundreds of villages, schools and health centers, washing cattle and destroying crops, in addition to killing around 50 people and triggering evacuations.
Growing floods so far have affected more than 2 million people, in the evacuation of more than 700,000 people, according to official statistics.
Water flows further south to fall into the powerful Indo River and it is feared to cause ravages in the province of southern Sindh in the next few days.
“This is not normal, but it is becoming the new normality. Los Monzones, driven by climate change, now provide fear and devastation to the communities of all Pakistan,” said Mo Yahya, the UN Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator, in a publication in the US Social Networks Company, after visiting the flooding areas.
“The flooded rice fields extend as far as the view. Farmers now face months without crops or income until the next planting season,” he said, while published a video of crop land flooded in the Hafizabad district.
“This is just the beginning: more intense rains are expected in the weeks of combination. As water flows further south, more families will threaten displacement and destruction,” added Yahya.
“This is not just another natural disaster; this is #Climatechange.”
Endoring the warning, Waqar Ahmad, the general secretary of the Kisan Pakistan Board, a body of farmers nationwide, said that catastrophic floods have destroyed the three main crops of rice, sugar and sesame cane (seeds rich in oil) in Punjab.
“The rice cultivation has particularly affected as floods have affected the main rice producing districts,” Rizvi told Anadolu.
According to him, 70% of the rice harvest has been destroyed by the last floods.
