A heavier-than-usual monsoon since late June produced cloudbursts, floods and landslides that killed over 800 people, damaged more than 7,225 houses and washed away over 5,500 livestock. The deluge also destroyed vast areas of agricultural land, including repeated losses to rice crops. Pakistan ranks among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable nations while contributing under 1 percent of global emissions. Many farmers have been forced into exile, debt and urban migration after successive floods in 2010, 2012 and 2022. Displacement ended decades of family farming for some, and widespread humanitarian and agricultural impacts continue across affected regions.
As a new wave of cloudbursts, monsoon rains and floods cause havoc across Pakistan, Iqbal Solangi sits in his small house in the southern coastal city of Karachi, feeling the pain of those who lost their loved ones, land and livestock. Since late June, a heavier-than-usual monsoon, followed by floods and landslides, has killed more than 800 people, damaged at least 7,225 houses, and washed away over 5,500 livestock in addition to the widespread destruction of crops across the country.
Solangi had ended his climate-change-forced exile from farming in 2022, but ended up losing his rice crop due to the flooding for a third time after the 2010 and 2012 floods, and found himself under a huge pile of debt yet again. In 2012, he had moved from a tiny village on the border of the Sindh and Balochistan provinces to Karachi because climate change had made the profession of his forefathers unsustainable. The displacement brought to a temporary end three decades of farming.
Collection
[
|
...
]