Islamabad.- At least eight people died and one is still missing after the sinking of a private rescue boat operating in the area of the city of Multan, one of the most affected by the floods in
Pakistan, where almost a thousand people have already died since the monsoon season began.
"A private boat capsized due to overloading on Wednesday night. It was carrying 24 victims of the floods, of whom fifteen were evacuated alive, while eight bodies were recovered and one remains missing," Muhammad Farooq, the spokesman for the Rescue Service 1122, told EFE.
A few hours earlier, another boat carrying about twenty people sank in the Multan area.
In the first sinking, a twenty-month-old baby died.
The province of Punjab, where Multan is located and where more than half of Pakistan's 240 million inhabitants live, has faced "exceptionally high floods" in recent months due to heavy monsoon rains and, according to Islamabad, the decision by India to release water from the dams of the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers.
Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) counts 955 deaths in this country during the monsoon season, since last June 26.
Punjab Relief Commissioner Nabeel Javed said last Friday that more than 4.4 million people have been directly affected by river floods in the province.
"2.452 million people trapped in the floods have been relocated to safer places," said Javeed, who reported that relief and medical camps have been established in the area.
In 2022, monsoon rains and unprecedented floods in Pakistan caused the death of more than 1,700 people across the country, leading to economic losses of more than $30 billion to the national economy.
Pakistan is among the ten countries in the world most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
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