(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
In Pakistan’s Record Floods, Villages Are Now Desperate Islands [1]
['Christina Goldbaum', 'Zia Ur-Rehman', 'Kiana Hayeri']
Date: 2022-09-14
DADU, Pakistan — The view from Muhammad Jaffar’s small, mud brick home in southern Pakistan used to bring him a sense of relief. Rolling fields of green cotton shrubs had started just steps from his door, their white blooms offering the promise of enough income for his family to survive the year.
Now his fields, along with other vast swaths of Pakistan, are under green, putrid water. About two weeks ago, in one of the latest rounds of record-shattering flooding that has afflicted the country since June, his land was completely submerged, including his well for drinking water.
“We are living on an island now,” Mr. Jaffar, 40, told visiting New York Times journalists on Tuesday.
The devastating floods have inundated hundreds of villages across much of Pakistan’s fertile land. In Sindh Province in the south, the floodwater has effectively transformed what was once farmland into two large lakes that have engulfed entire villages and turned others into fragile islands. The flooding is the worst to hit the country in recent history, according to Pakistani officials. They warn that it may take three to six months for the floodwaters to recede.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/world/asia/pakistan-floods.html
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
