Pakistan — Under a blistering late-summer sun, families huddled in tents and open fields Monday after record floods forced more than 120,000 people from their homes in central Pakistan. What they carried with them was little more than the clothes on their backs; what they lost was nearly everything else.
The mass evacuation, backed by military helicopters and rescue boats, unfolded overnight in Jalalpur Pirwala, a city in eastern Punjab province where weeks of torrential monsoon rains combined with dam releases from India swelled rivers to dangerous levels. Officials said nearly 2.2 million people across Punjab have been displaced since last month, their farms, homes, and villages swallowed by advancing water.
At least 61 people have died in flood-related incidents, according to the Punjab Disaster Management Authority. With river levels still rising, officials warned that Multan, another major city, remains under threat. Plans are underway for controlled breaches of embankments to steer floodwaters toward rural areas in hopes of sparing more densely populated districts.
For many, survival has meant trade-offs between safety and dignity. Zarini Bibi, 45, fled her village by boat with her children as the waters surged. “I saw doomsday in the shape of this flood,” she said. Her home now lies beneath muddy water; she spends her nights in a sweltering relief camp, dependent on sporadic food donations. “It feels like we have become beggars.”
Others have fared no better. Tariq Ullah, turned away by relatives, pitched a roadside tent for his family. “Thank God our lives were saved,” he said. “A house can be rebuilt, but life is given only once.”
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Rescue operations remain perilous. An Associated Press reporter who traveled by boat to Daryapur, a nearby village, witnessed residents stranded on rooftops before they were airlifted out. Emergency officials said 70 percent of evacuations in surrounding districts have been completed. Military helicopters continued dropping supplies to those cut off on Jalalpur Pirwala’s outskirts.
The government insists truckloads of aid are moving daily, though many survivors say help has been slow or uneven. The Punjab disaster agency confirmed that more than 3,900 villages in 26 districts have been submerged since late August.
The disaster has reopened old wounds. Pakistan is still recovering from the catastrophic 2022 floods that killed nearly 1,800 people, many of them in Sindh province, where more than 100,000 were displaced again last week.
As the waters advance, the scale of displacement is once more testing Pakistan’s fragile infrastructure — and the endurance of its people.
