Floods in Pakistan

Torrential rains and flooding have submerged a third of Pakistan and killed more than 1,191 people, including 399 children as the United Nations appealed for aid on Tuesday for what it described as an "unprecedented climate catastrophe."

The country has received nearly twice as much rain than the 30-year average in the quarter through August this year, totalling 390.7 millimetres (15.38 inches). Sindh province, with a population of 50 million, was hardest hit, getting 471% more rain than the 30-year average.

The floods have affected the southeastern province of Sindh and neighbouring Balochistan the most. Sindh is the second most populated province after Punjab, and Balochistan is the largest but the least populated.

"One third of the country is literally under water," Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman told Reuters, describing the scale of the disaster as "a catastrophe of unknown precedent".

She said the water was not going to recede anytime soon.

Sindh and Balochistan have also the most damage to human life and infrastructure, though other parts of the country are also severely affected.Satellite imagery shows extensive damage even in the south of Punjab province in an area called Rojhan. Houses on the banks of the Indus have been swept away and many farming towns have lost their crops.

According to the National Disaster Management Authority, floods since mid-June have fully damaged over 370 thousand houses while over 730 thousand more have been partially damaged. Eight-four percent of this damage has been reported from Sindh province alone. The northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and eastern Punjab provinces also saw extensive damage.

Sindh and Balochistan also accounted for more than 50% of the flood-related deaths in this monsoon season.

As of Wednesday, half of Pakistan’s districts have been declared calamity-hit according to the NDMA.

Colossal volumes of water are pouring into the Indus river, which flows down the middle of the country from its northern peaks to southern plains, bringing flooding along its length.

The country has also reported damage to about 5,000 km of road and 243 bridges. Balochistan has lost about a half million head of livestock in the floods.

The flood waters have washed away roads, crops, infrastructure and bridges, and have affected telecommunication services in some parts of Pakistan. A main supply route from the port city of Karachi has been cut for more than a week after a bridge linking it to Balochistan was swept away, while dozens of small dams in the province were overwhelmed.

Provisional data from provincial Education Departments show that at least 17,566 schools have been damaged or destroyed, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest report on the floods.

According to Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, early estimates put the damage from the floods at more than $10 billion.

Pakistan had been reporting flood-related deaths and injuries for the past two months, though the numbers have shot up at a faster pace in recent weeks. About a quarter of all the deaths have been reported over the past week.

"Pakistan is awash in suffering," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video message, as the United Nations launched an appeal for $160 million to help the South Asian nation. "The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids - the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding."

Nearly 300 stranded people, including some tourists, were airlifted in northern Pakistan on Tuesday, a state-run disaster management agency said in a statement, while over 50,000 people were moved to two government shelters in the northwest.

"Life is very painful here," 63-year-old villager Hussain Sadiq, who at a shelter with his parents and five children, told Reuters, adding that his family had "lost everything"