JACOBABAD:
Not so long ago, Sarah Khan, headmaster for destitute girls in Jacobabad in South Pakistan, looked on in anxiety when some students passed out from heat – city was the world’s hottest one dot in May.
Now, after torrential monsoon rains, large parts of of country, its classrooms are flooded, and many of 200 homeless students struggling to get enough food and care for injured relatives.
such an extreme weather events in short space of time to eat caused devastation across the country killing hundreds of people, cutting off community, wrecking homes and infrastructure and raising concerns over health and food security.
Jacobabad was not spared. In May, the temperature exceeded 50 degrees Celsius. up canal beds, causing some residents to pass out from heatstroke. Parts today of in city are under water, although the flood has receded from its peak.
In Hana in East of in cityhouses are badly damaged. On Thursday, she said she heard the screams of a neighbor. house when the roof collapsed from water damage, killing there are nine of themyear-old son.
Men walk through rainwater, after rains and floods during the rainy season in Jacobabad, Pakistan, August 30, 2022 REUTERS
A lot of of her students are unlikely to return to school for months, having already lost class time during the brutal summer heat.
“Jacobabad is the hottest city in there are so many in the world challenges … before people had a heatstroke, now people almost everyone lost their homes (in in flood), they became homeless,” she told Reuters.
19 people in in city of about 200,000 people confirmed to have died in flooding, including children, according to the city’s deputy commissioner, while local hospitals reported many more were sick or injured.
Over 40,000 people live in temporary shelters in overcrowded schools with limited access to food.
One of settlers, 40-year-old Dur Bibi, sat under the tent in grounds of school and remembered the moment when she ran, when water gushed into her. home Late night last a week.
The man is driving on donkey cart through rainwater, after rains and floods in the rainy season in Jacobabad, Pakistan, August 30, 2022 REUTERS
“I grabbed my children and rushed out of in house with barefoot,” she said, adding that the only thing they managed to take with it was a copy of Koran.
Four days later, she was unable to get her medicine. for her daughter who suffers from fever.
“I have nothing but these children. Everything of things in my home were swept away,” she said.
WEATHER EXTREME
Level of destruction in Jacobabad, where there are many people live in poverty, shows some of in challenges extreme weather events related to climate change can create.
“Manifestation of climate change is more frequent and more intense phenomenon of extreme weather events, and this is exactly what we witnessed in Jacobabad, as well as in other countries of the world during past several months,” said Athar Hussein, head of center for Climate Research and Development at COMSATS University in Islamabad.
Research before this year World weather attribution group international team of scientists, found what a heat, what hit Pakistan in March and April were made thirty times more most likely due to climate change.
Global warming has likely exacerbated the recent floods, says Liz Stevens. scientist in university of Reading in Britannia. This is because a warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture that is eventually released in the form of torrential rains.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said the country is highly dependent on on agriculture, staggered.
“If you are a farmer in Jacobabad… you couldn’t plant crops because of water shortage and heat during the heatwave and now your crops have been damaged in monsoons and floods,” he told Reuters. in Interview.
girls, who together with their families were displaced by the floods, give water to their brothers and sisters when they take shelter in school after the rains and floods in the rainy season, in Jacobabad, Pakistan, August 30, 2022 REUTERS
In Jacobabad, local health care, education and development officials said record temperatures followed by unusually heavy rains strained vital services.
Hospitals that set up heat stroke emergency centers in May is reporting an influx of people injured in floods and patients with gastroenteritis and skin diseases in unsanitary conditions.
Jacobabad Institute of Medical Sciences (JIMS) said it had cured about 70 people. people in last days for shrapnel injuries in flooding, including deep cuts and broken bones.
Over 800 children were accepted into JIMS for gastroenteritis conditions in August during heavy rains, compared with 380 the previous month, hospital data showed.
At a nearby civilian hospital, partly submerged, doctor Vijay Kumar reported cases of the number of patients suffering from gastroenteritis and other diseases has increased at least three times since the flood.
Rizwan Sheikh, head Jacobabad meteorological officer recorded high temperature of 51 degrees in May. Now he tracks the incessant heavy rains and notes with anxiety that there are two more weeks of monsoon season ahead.
“All districts in It’s a very tense situation,” he said.