Pakistan’s southern Sindh province evacuates 100,000 people over flooding threat

Authorities in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province have evacuated more than 100,000 people from low-lying areas along the Indus river, a government spokesman said on Friday, after neighbouring India warned of cross-border flooding from dam release.

The evacuations come as rescuers mounted a major rescue and relief operation in the country’s eastern Punjab province, where flooding from weeks of monsoon rains and overflowing dams in India has displaced about 1.8 million people since August.

Since late June, monsoon flooding has killed more than 900 people across Pakistan, according to disaster officials.

India notified Islamabad through diplomatic channels on Friday of the potential cross-border flooding, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and local authorities.

Weeks of heavier-than-normal monsoon rains, compounded by water releases from dams in India, have swelled rivers in Punjab to dangerous levels.

Deluges are now moving downstream towards Sindh, where they could swell the Indus river, officials said.

Currently, thousands of rescuers backed by the military are delivering food to other displaced people in Muzaffargarh and Multan districts in Punjab, where floods have inundated 3,900 villages since the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers burst their banks two weeks ago.

Sindh information minister Sharjeel Memon said in a statement that evacuations were under way in vulnerable districts, with 109,320 people already moved to safer ground as water levels in the Indus rise.

Sindh was among the worst-hit regions in the catastrophic 2022 floods, which killed 1,739 people nationwide.