ISLAMABAD: Unprecedented floods and heavy rains across Pakistan have claimed at least 830 lives since July 2022 and the government has decided to make an international appeal seeking funds for relief and rehabilitation of flood-hit people and restoration of damaged infrastructure.
This was decided in an urgent meeting of the National Disaster Management Authority. The meeting was arranged to evaluate the damage done by floods and to apprise the development partners and donors of the magnitude of the crisis.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also appealed to the nation to help the flood-hit people as the government required hundreds of billions to rehabilitate the flood victims.
The ongoing relief operations need at least Rs 80 billion in addition to hundreds of billions of rupees to overcome the losses as well as for rehabilitation of the victims, PM Shehbaz said in a video message.
PM said the government was distributing Rs37.2 billion as cash relief whereas funds to the tune of Rs5 billion had been released to the NDMA to accelerate the rescue efforts.
Shehbaz Sharif said the government was providing Rs25,000 cash assistance to the flood victims.
He said the government would also provide Rs1 million as compensation to the families of each deceased, along with additional support for the injured and damages caused to the houses.
The participants of the NDMA meeting chaired by the planning minister, Ahsan Iqbal, were told that so far the floods had claimed 830 lives, left at least 1,348 injured, and rendered thousands of people across the country homeless.
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