The United Nations and the Pakistani government have launched an emergency appeal for $160m today to help those hit hardest by the floods devastating the country.
The funds will provide 5.2 million of the worst-affected and most vulnerable people with food, clean water, sanitation, emergency education, protection and health support, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, calling the disaster a "colossal crisis".
"Pakistan is awash in suffering. The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids - the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding," he said in a video statement.
The aid, covering the initial six months of the crisis response, will help to avoid outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, and to provide nutrition aid to young children and their mothers.
It will also provide assistance to refugees and facilitate schemes to reunite families separated by the disaster.
"The people of Pakistan urgently need international solidarity and support," Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told a press briefing in Geneva.
He said some 500,000 people displaced by the floods were sheltering in relief camps, with many more temporarily staying with host families.
Around 150 bridges have been washed away, Mr Laerke said, and 3,500 kms (2,175 miles) of roads have been damaged in flooding and landslides.
"The heavy rains are forecast to continue and with many dams and rivers already at flood levels, the flooding is likely to get worse before it gets better," Mr Laerke said.
Shafqat Ullah, Livelihood specialist in Pakistan for Irish humanitarian organisation Concern, said that diseases are expected to spread in the coming days.
He said that more rain is expected, but that crops such as wheat will not be able to grow, so food security is an additional at risk.
Tens of millions of people have been affected by relentless monsoon rains that have submerged a third of Pakistan and claimed more than 1,100 lives.
The rains that began in June have unleashed the worst flooding in more than a decade, washing away swathes of vital crops and damaging or destroying more than a million homes.
World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Pakistan's health facilities had been severely affected by the flooding, with 180 "completely damaged".
He said there was already a vast disparity between rural and urban healthcare provision, while treatment for non-communicable diseases such as diabetes would be "severely" impacted.
"It's a vast problem which opens up here," he said.
The UN refugee agency said there were 1.3 million Afghan refugees registered in Pakistan and it had already delivered $1.5m worth of emergency relief and shelter items - but "much, much more" would be needed in the coming weeks.
Mr Guterres branded the floods a "climate catastrophe", saying South Asia was one of the world's hotspots where people are "15 times more likely to die from climate impacts".
"It is outrageous that climate action is being put on the back burner as global emissions of greenhouse gases are still rising, putting all of us - everywhere - in growing danger," he said.
The UN's World Meteorological Organization said that Pakistan and northwest India have been witnessing an intense 2022 monsoon season.
One site at Padidan in the southern Sindh province was reporting 1,288mm of rain so far in August, compared to the monthly average of 46mm, said WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
