
To assist the tens of millions of people devastated by the unrelenting "monsoon on steroids" that have drowned a third of the country and killed more than 1,100 people, aid activities have been stepped up throughout the inundated nation of Pakistan.
In an emergency appeal on Tuesday, the UN has requested $160 million to assist Pakistan in dealing with floods that have killed more than 1,100 people, affected 33 million people, and devastated homes, businesses, infrastructure, and agriculture.
Watch |Pakistan mulls import from India as incessant rainfall & floods batter the Islamic republic
"Pakistan is awash in suffering," said UNSecretary General Antonio Guterres.
"The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids - the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding."
According to Guterres, the catastrophe and the millions of people affected by it who are bearing the brunt of it require the world's collective and prioritised attention.
Take a look at some of the devastation wreaked by the monsoon:
Hundreds of thousands of women, children, and men, according to Pakistan's foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, were living outside without access to food, clean water, shelter, or even the most basic medical treatment.
AFP reports that the foreign minister said that Pakistan would require assistance with the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the flood-affected areas. "We urgently need shelter and tents, and mosquito nets," he added.
The country's planning minister Ahsan Iqbal too has demanded help from the western nations. SkyNews reports that the minister said that his country is suffering the effects of climate change caused by richer nations and their "irresponsible development".
He further claimed that Pakistan has the lowest carbon footprint in the world and that "The international community has a responsibility to help us, upgrade our infrastructure, to make our infrastructure more climate resilient, so that we don't have such losses every three, four, five years."
(With inputs from agencies)
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