The Pakistan Floods Appeal is now closed and appeal funds will be spent up until August 31st 2024.

Over the past two years your donations have helped hundreds of thousands of people get through the disaster, providing them with emergency shelter, clean water, food, healthcare, cash payments and livelihood support.

If you would still like to donate to help people affected, you can donate to the following appeals from DEC member charities:

• CAFOD
• Islamic Relief 
• British Red Cross
   

Dr Muhammad Mazhar Alam is Senior Health and Nutrition Advisor at Concern Worldwide, Pakistan explains how DEC funds are being used to teach farmers in Pakistan climate friendly techniques.  

Following the flooding last year, 33 million people were affected, and 4 million acres of agricultural land was lost along with over a million livestock in areas where many depend on the land for their income.

These techniques are designed to help protect farmers against future climate related disasters.

Extreme flooding during the monsoon season in Pakistan last summer was made more likely by climate change, according to a major study.

As global temperatures continue to rise, weather patterns are becoming more unpredictable, increasing the risk of weather-related natural disasters.

Using disaster risk reduction measures such as these can help reduce their impact, DEC charities have been working with flood affected communities in Pakistan to help prepare them for future climate related disasters. 

The floods damaged many healthcare facilities across the country, and roads that people used to get to them. 

To help people in remote areas access treatment, DEC charities have established mobile health clinics headed up by local medical professionals. Teams go out in vans stocked with essential medicines and equipment, targeting areas where people don’t have access to medical support, providing on-the-spot help.

The clinics play a significant role in bridging the gap between people who live in remote, rural areas and essential medical care.

His Majesty The King met with representatives from the charities of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) today (8 June 2023) to hear about the impact of UK donations to the Pakistan Floods Appeal which helped hundreds of people in the first six months of the response.

During the meeting with His Majesty The King at Buckingham Palace, DEC Chief Executive Saleh Saeed spoke about how DEC charities and their local partners had provided life-saving aid in the months following the floods and spoke of his visit to the affected areas late last year.

For International Women’s Day, DEC Chair of Trustees Sue Inglish reflects on the stories of women she met in Pakistan’s flooded villages.

Trustees Sue Inglish, Melanie Hind and DEC chief executive Sale Saeed travelled to Pakistan in December to visit DEC-funded projects in flood affected areas. 

During the visit, the team saw how cash support is allowing women to meet their family’s needs, mobile are clinics providing access to healthcare and more. 

The projects visited are run by DEC charities Concern Worldwide, Oxfam, and Islamic Relief.

CEOs and experts from the 15 charities that make up the DEC today met with His Majesty The King to discuss the impact of funds given by the UK public to international humanitarian crises, and how the changing climate is affecting the world’s most vulnerable communities.

This was coupled with the news that the DEC's Pakistan Floods Appeal has now raised an astounding £38 million, thanks to the generosity of the British public with donations also from Their Majesties The King and The Queen Consort and Their Royal Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales.

The appeal also received £5 million in UK Aid Match from the UK Government.

The extreme flooding that hit Pakistan left hundreds of thousands of women in need of maternity services. DEC charities are helping by providing food, shelter and mobile health clinics.

Read some of the ways DEC charities have been supporting pregnant women in the wake of extreme flooding. 

I’m donating my match fees from this Test series to the Pakistan Flood appeal ❤️🇵🇰 pic.twitter.com/BgvY0VQ2GG

— Ben Stokes (@benstokes38) November 28, 2022

Cop27 climate summit in Egypt focuses on gendered impacts and water, Pakistan’s flood survivors are still facing the worsening impact on their health, reports Stuti Mishra for The Independent. 

Women and young girls who survived the August flooding are suffering from urinary tract infections (UTIs), reproductive issues and other health complications, activists from Water Aid Pakistan told the Cop27 summit.

Three months on from the flooding, stagnant water provides a breeding ground for water borne diseases, at time a where access to medical treatment is still very challenging. 

Reporting from Balochistan, in South Western Pakistan, BBC News South Asia correspondent, Rajini Vaidyanathan, writes about the hardships still faced in flood affected areas. 

With the backdrop of the COP27 conference happening this week in Egypt, millions of people in Pakistan remain homeless, roads are destroyed and tens of thousands of schools and hospitals lie in ruins.

At the conference,  the country's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called on Western nations to offer compensation to poorer, vulnerable countries like Pakistan. 

DEC charities have been providing lifesaving aid in the immediate aftermath of the disaster and are continuing to support people whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by the floods.

Find out more about how DEC charities are supporting people in Pakistan below. 

The United Nations is asking for five times' more international aid after deadly floods in Pakistan left millions of survivors homeless and at rising risk of waterborne diseases, reports Munir Ahmed for The Independent. 

The UN has raised its request to £718 million from £140 million, in line with recent assessments that looked at the scale of need in the long-term.

The new comes just days after the United Nations humanitarian agency is warned that 5.7 million flood survivors in Pakistan will face a food crisis in the next three months, meaning many in the country will go hungry.  

Shah Meer Baloch and Matthew Taylor report on record temperatures, drought and now flooding that have devastated Pakistan in recent months. 

The Guardian report looks how Pakistan has been battered by drastic weather extremes since the start of the year.

Deadly heatwaves sent temperatures above 50C (122F) in the spring, followed by huge wildfires and crippling droughts. Now with large areas of the country still submerged in water, the article looks at the role the changing climate has played in the events. 

England were welcomed back to Pakistan for the upcoming T20 World Cup, as capitan Jos Buttler spoke about the floods that have devastated pakistan in recent months. 

According to the Guardian, Buttler said: “We know the tough times that the people of Pakistan are facing with the floods. We hope that our being here to play some exciting games of cricket will be a small tonic to help raise spirits, and help shed some light on what is happening.”

Players in the England team have agreed between them to make a to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, and that the gift will be matched by the English Cricket Board (ECB).

Tez Ilyas and Guz Khan, two popular British/Pakistani comedians, are holding special events in London to raise money for the DEC. 

Tez Ilyas is hosting a night of stand up performances from Aatif Nawaz, Esheen Akbar and more at the famous Hackney Empire theatre. 

Fellow comedian Guz Khan has also provided a star studded line up for his show at the Harold Pinter Theatre in Central London, with DEC supporter Riz Ahmed and Asim Chowdry among the performances. 

All proceeds from the shows will be donated to the DEC's Pakistan Floods Appeal. 

The DEC Pakistan Floods Appeal has raised an amazing £25 million in just two weeks, including £5 million matched by the UK Government. A huge thank you for all your support!

“At this time of national mourning, especially, we are so grateful to everyone across all four nations of the UK who have donated to the DEC Pakistan Floods Appeal," said Saleh Saeed, the DEC's Chief Executive. "This support is already helping people caught up in a really desperate situation due to the unprecedented flooding."

Unfortunately more rain has been falling in some of the worst-hit areas such as Sindh province in the last few days, and Karachi has seen an outbreak of Dengue fever. There is also a high-risk from other diseases such as cholera, malaria and typhoid, particularly as so many health facilities have been damanged in the flooding.

Around 650,000 pregnant women are amongst the people affected by the flooding in Pakistan, according to the UN, with 73,000 expected to deliver in the next month.

Shah Meer Baloch has interviewed more than a dozen pregnant women or new mothers in the affected areas for The Guardian, highlighting the terrible situation they face with little food or clean water and healthcare services all but shut down.

DEC charities are working to provide emergency aid to people in the worst affected areas, including mobile health clinics helping pregnant women and small children.

Mohenjo-daro, located in southern Sindh province near the Indus River, and a Unesco world heritage site, are considered among the best preserved urban settlements in south Asia.

The Guardian reports that the flooding has not directly hit Mohenjo-daro but the heavy rains have inflicted some damage on closeby ruins. Ahsan Abbasi, the site’s curator said: 

“Several big walls which were built nearly 5,000 years ago have collapsed because of the monsoon rains.”

The site is located in Sindh province, one of the worst affected by the record breaking monsoon rains.

UK prime minister and current UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, writes for ITV News on the situation in Pakistan.

"The tragedy of Pakistan is that it has never fully recovered from its previous disasters - the earthquake of 2005 and the floods of 2010... 

"The biggest losers now and for years ahead will be Pakistan’s children and young people. Millions of young people's life chances now hang by a thread. Even before the floods, 22.8 million school-age children did not go to school, and now roughly 16 million children - who lost months of schooling during Covid - now face many more months without a functioning school to attend."

ITV have reported that 18,000 schools have been damaged or destroyed, with several thousand deemed unsafe.

Senior local officials have warned earlier attempts to drain the river had failed, heightening risks of the river banks bursting after monsoon rains, reports Guardian journalist Oliver Holmes.

In a last-ditch effort to avoid a catastrophe, officials breached Lake Manchar on Sunday, a move they acknowledged could displace up to 100,000 people from their homes but would also save densely populated areas from floods.

Unfortunately, provincial minster for irrigation, Jam Khan Shoro, said on Monday attempts to drain the river had not worked. “The water level at Manchar lake has not come down,” he said talking about the lake in the southern province of Sindh.

The Pakistan Floods Appeal has raised £15 million in just four days, including £5 million matched by the UK Government.

Thank you so much to everyone who has donated and fundraised so far. Your support means that DEC charities will be able to reach more people with critical aid and make a huge difference.

Funds are made available to DEC charities immediately to allow them to begin scaling up their work quickly before submitting formal plans for the rest of the response in the coming weeks. The funds will be divided between 11 DEC member charities which are responding either directly or through trusted local partners.

Whole villages are swept away, towns are cut in half, a hydroelectric power station is overwhelmed and smashed and roads and bridges along the way are destroyed, reports Sky News's Chief correspondent Stuart Ramsey. 

"Whole villages are swept away, towns are cut in half, a hydroelectric power station is overwhelmed and smashed and roads and bridges along the way are destroyed. Like other disasters, even though the rains that brought this destruction have stopped for now, the disaster and its consequences have not. Over a week on, the suffering of people who survived is growing by the day."

The DEC's Chief Executive Officer, Saleh Saeed, was interviewed by Sky News as part of the special report.

The Pakistani government have appealed for “immense humanitarian response” in response to the flooding, reports The Guardian.

The federal planning minster, Ashan Iqbal said: “The scale of devastation is massive and requires an immense humanitarian response for 33 million people. For this I appeal to my fellow Pakistanis, Pakistan expatriates and the international community to help Pakistan in this hour of need.” 

The latest report from Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority reported a further 57 deaths from areas effected by the floods, bringing the total death roll related to the heavy monsoon rains, that began in mid-June, to 1,265, including 441 children.

Eight months pregnant, Basra Bibi was fortunate to survive. But on returning to the village, the 25-year-old was horrified to see its health centre had been submerged by flood water, report Joe Wallen and Ashfaq Yusufzai in The Telegraph.

The torrent of water sweeping through the village of Kalam was merciless, residents recall, killing six people and flattening dozens of buildings.

Over 1,100 people have died since June in floods described as “the worst in the history of Pakistan” by the country’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif. One-third of Pakistan has been engulfed by flooding, over 30 million people are displaced and millions of hectares of farmland washed away.

As the DEC launched an appeal to raise funds for the 33 million people affected, the European Space Agency released stark images based on data captured by its Copernicus satellite, revealing the huge extent of the flooding across Pakistan.

Aid workers are battling immense logistical challenges to get to millions of people in need, particularly in south-eastern Sindh province where the water level remains high. Even in areas where the water has slightly receded, aid distribution is complicated by damaged roads, cut power lines and blocked railways.

Following the launch of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Pakistan Floods Appeal today, the UK government has announced it will match pound for pound the first £5 million of public donations, as part of today’s total £15 million pledge.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said, "The UK stands with Pakistan, as tens of millions of people face devastating floods, which have left a third of the country – an area roughly the size of the UK – underwater. As a major humanitarian donor, we will do all we can to get life-saving aid to the most vulnerable, including through this £15 million package of support."

The DEC launches the Pakistan Floods Appeal to support people in Pakistan affected by flooding. Over 33 million, one in seven Pakistanis, have been affected so far and immediate help is needed to help them survive.

One third of the country – an area the size of the UK – has been submerged, according to the government of Pakistan, with floods sweeping away entire communities and leaving more than a million homes destroyed or badly damaged. At least 1,100 people have already been killed and 6 million more are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. 

DEC charities are providing life-saving aid but say that funds are vital to reach more of those affected with food, clean drinking water and shelter.