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Pakistan's deadly floods created a huge inland lake 100 kilometers wide, according to satellite images

2022-09-01T01:27:46.185Z


New satellite images reveal the extent of Pakistan's record flooding and how the overflow of the Indus River has created a 100km inland lake.


See how the rains and floods have affected Pakistan 1:00

(CNN) --

New satellite images reveal the extent of Pakistan's record flooding, showing how the overflow of the Indus River has turned part of Sindh province into a 100-kilometer-wide inland lake.


Parts of the country are now under water, after what United Nations officials have described as a "monsoon on steroids" has caused the heaviest rains in living memory and flooding that has caused 1,162 deaths, 3,554 injuries. and 33 million victims since mid-June.

The new images, taken on August 28 by NASA's MODIS satellite sensor, show how the combination of heavy rains and the overflow of the Indus River have flooded much of Sindh province in the south of the country.

Move the slider to the left to see that flood waters (shown in blue) cover large portions of Pakistan's normally arid, brown landscape in this satellite image captured on Sunday, August 28.

Move the slider to the right to see the same date last year.

These images are known as "false color" images, which combine infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and land.

In the center of the image, a large dark blue area shows the Indus overflow, which has flooded an area about 100 kilometers wide, turning what were once farmlands into a giant inland lake.

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It's a striking transformation from the photo taken by the same satellite on the same date last year, which shows the river and its contained tributaries in what appear to be small, narrow bands by comparison, highlighting the magnitude of the damage in one of the most affected areas of the country.

This year's monsoon is already the country's wettest since records began in 1961, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, with the season still a month away.

In Sindh and Balochistan provinces, rainfall has been 500% above average, wiping out entire villages and farmland, taking buildings and crops with it.

Although mostly dry weather is expected in the region in the coming days, experts say it will take days for the water to recede.

Pakistan's Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said on Sunday that parts of the country "look like a little ocean" and that "by the time this is over, we could have a quarter or a third of Pakistan under water."

Flood of apocalyptic proportions

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said he had visited Sindh and seen firsthand how floods had displaced entire towns and cities.

"We can barely find dry land. The magnitude of this tragedy... 33 million people, that's more than the population of Sri Lanka or Australia," he said.

"And while we understand that the new reality of climate change means more extreme weather, or monsoons, more extreme heat waves like the ones we saw earlier this year, the scale of the current flooding is of apocalyptic proportions. We certainly hope that not be a new climate reality.

Satellite images from Maxar Technologies of other parts of the country show how entire villages and hundreds of patches of green land have been washed away by rapid flooding.

Images from Gudpur, a town in Punjab, show how floods have damaged houses and replaced fields with winding dirt tracks.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif arrived in the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday to inspect flood damage.

The province has recorded most of the latest deaths after the water level rose exponentially, according to the country's National Disaster Management Authority.

Sharif said Tuesday that the flooding was the "worst in Pakistan's history" and that international help was needed to deal with the scale of the devastation.

With additional reporting by CNN's Rachel Ramirez, Angela Dewan, Paul P. Murphy, and Jan Camenzind Broomby.

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Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-09-01

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