Deadly Pakistan floods cause huge inland lake revealed by satellite images

Weather of Arabia - The latest satellite images revealed the magnitude of the impact of the record floods that swept Pakistan, and how the flood of the Indus River turned part of the Indus region into a huge inland lake with a width of 100 km.

Vast areas of the country were flooded, covering about a third of Pakistan's area after the monsoon rains were the heaviest in living memory. The floods have killed 1,265 people, injured 3,554 and affected 33 million since mid-June 2022.

The new images, taken on August 28 from NASA's MODIS satellite sensor, show how torrential rain and flooding of the Indus River inundated much of the Sindh province in southern Pakistan, with water covering large parts of arid land and buildings.

(In the photo, a large area of ​​dark blue shows the Indus River overflowing and inundating an area about 100 km wide, turning what was once an agricultural field into a giant inland lake)

A shocking departure from the same satellite image taken on the same date last year, which shows the river and its tributaries in what appear to be small, narrow ranges, underlining the extent of the damage in one of the worst-hit areas in the country.

According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, this year's monsoon is already the heaviest in the country since records began in 1961, and the season still has one month to finish.

In both Sindh and Baluchistan, rainfall was 500% above average, and entire villages and farmlands were swept away by floods, demolishing buildings and wiping out crops.

The main causes of catastrophic floods in Pakistan

Pakistan has a long history of catastrophic floods, and the causes of the most severe floods this year can be summarized as follows:

• The successive heat waves that hit Pakistan and the record rise in temperature levels, which in turn led to avalanches, resulting in floods.
• The intensity of the monsoon winds, which worked to precipitate large amounts of rain.

It is noteworthy that floods in Pakistan occur with this force every particular climate cycle, the last of which was in 2010.

Here is a set of pictures that convey the catastrophic situation of the people of Pakistan after the devastating floods this year: