More than two million evacuated as devastating monsoon floods inundate eastern Pakistan

More than two million people have been evacuated in Pakistan’s Punjab province and a further 150,000 in Sindh as monsoon floods sweep across the country’s eastern region, officials said Thursday, as the death toll from heavy rains climbs.

The National Disaster Management Authority and provincial rescue teams have mounted large-scale relocations after rivers overflowed and low-lying areas were inundated. Inam Haider Malik, head of the national disaster agency, told reporters the evacuations were ongoing and warned the “number may rise over the coming days.” An update from the International Medical Corps on Friday said monsoon rains have killed more than 900 people nationwide since late June.

The floods have destroyed large swathes of farmland and homes, compounding hardship in a country where about 40% of the population lives below the poverty line. Authorities say rescuers have gone door-to-door and used boats to move families and livestock out of danger, but those operations have been perilous: nine people died after a rescue boat capsized in the Indus River on Tuesday, and five people were killed in a similar incident days earlier on the outskirts of Jalalpur Pirwala city.

Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority said it has delivered tonnes of relief supplies, including blankets, tents and water filtration devices, to affected districts in Punjab. Malik said it would take weeks for floodwaters to recede before officials could begin “rehabilitation work” on thousands of villages and fields.

The floods have not been confined to Pakistan. Severe rains and flooding across the region have also affected parts of India, where officials reported at least 30 fatalities and more than 354,000 people impacted.

International agencies and foreign governments have moved to assist. The United Nations allocated $5 million this week to support Pakistan’s flood response, and the U.S. State Department approved funding and deployed disaster response personnel to the affected areas.

Climate scientists and aid organizations say the intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall events in South Asia have been amplified by human-driven climate change, making the region more susceptible to sudden, catastrophic flooding. Critics and local campaigners have also pointed to long-standing gaps in disaster mitigation investment—such as early warning systems, resilient infrastructure and floodplain management—as factors that have increased vulnerability to the monsoon’s impacts.

Pakistan’s geography heightens its exposure: the country faces both extreme heat and intense seasonal rainfall, and its melting glaciers have created new high-altitude lakes that could threaten downstream communities through glacial outburst floods. In 2022, months of exceptionally heavy rain caused one of the country’s deadliest flood events in recent history, killing more than 1,700 people and affecting more than 30 million.

In response to the latest crisis, Pakistani authorities this week declared a climate emergency. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered officials to produce a 300-day plan to address immediate challenges posed by climate impacts and to strengthen measures to reduce future risks.

Local residents described agonizing choices between staying to protect property and fleeing to safety. Many said they initially remained at home to guard belongings and livestock, increasing the difficulty of evacuation and rescue efforts once waters rose quickly.

Rescue and relief operations are continuing amid concerns about sanitation, disease risk and food security for displaced families. Humanitarian groups have urged rapid scaling of aid and longer-term investment in flood defences and adaptation measures to reduce the likelihood of similarly destructive events in future monsoon seasons.