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Pakistan rescues 2,000 from floods as UN warns on child deaths

02 September 2022 15:46 (UTC +04:00)

Pakistan's armed forces have rescued a further 2,000 people stranded by rising floodwaters, they said on Friday, in a disaster blamed on climate change that has swamped about a third of the South Asian nation and is still growing.

Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in northern mountains brought floods that have killed at least 1,208 people, including 416 children, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has said.

The United Nations has appealed for $160 million in aid to help tackle what it said was an "unprecedented climate catastrophe" as Pakistan's navy has fanned out inland to carry out relief operations in areas that resemble a sea.

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF said on Friday many more children could die from disease.

"There is now a high risk of water-borne, deadly diseases spreading rapidly -- diarrhoea, cholera, dengue, malaria," UNICEF Pakistan Representative Abdullah Fadil told a Geneva press briefing. "There is therefore a risk of many more child deaths," he said.