A total of 275,000 houses and shops were destroyed and at least 422 people killed in the recent floods in various parts of the country, said National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Chairman Zafar Iqbal.
Talking to a private news channel, he said that 275,000 houses and shops have been completely destroyed, 235,831 in Sindh, 25,442 in Punjab, 8,626 in Balochistan, 4,392 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 1,243 in Azad Kashmir and 70 in Gilgit-Baltistan.
Another 155,662 houses and shops were partially damaged in the flood-hit areas of the country, including 132,282 in Sindh, 16,440 in Punjab, 4,289 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 1,564 in Balochistan, 1,017 in AJK and 70 in Gilgit-Baltistan, he added.
To a question regarding details of the relief operation, the NDMA said a total of 32,570 ration bags, 15,000 tents and 29 de-watering pump were distributed in the affected areas.
He said that more than 4,474,341 persons were affected by this year’s floods. The number of villages badly affected by the floods is stated to be 13,465.
He claimed that because of the lessons learnt from disasters in the past two years, epidemics and child mortality were relatively under control.
Everything is in place, including vaccines to fight malaria and even against snake-bites. There were several deaths from snake-bites after the last floods, he added.
Iqbal said that in Wazirabad, lives of over 400 people bitten by snakes had been saved. He said that a majority of deaths took place in Sindh where 239 people died and 2,300 people were injured. Sixty people were killed in Punjab and 272 were injured. In Balochistan 51 people were killed and 115 injured. According to figures updated on September 28, about 4.7 million people had been affected – 3.12 million in Sindh alone, 887,345 in Punjab and 704,822 in Balochistan.
