Pakistan Floods 2010 causing losses more than any other recent disaster

Over 14.5 million people have been affected by the worst floods Pakistan has witnessed in decades and the number is rising as the scale of the disaster becomes better understood.  The flooding, has been triggered by monsoon rains. In Peshawar area rainfall of 522 mm occurred in 3 days which is higher than the annual rainfall in the area. As per the estimates of the National Disaster Management Authority (www.ndma.gov.pk), some 132,000 sq. km area has been affected and about 722,508 households have been damaged.  The death toll is reported to be around 1600. 

The losses are highly significant than the losses occurred due to Pakistan Earthquake 2005 in which some 3.5 million people were affected and 600,152 households were damaged costing an economic loss of US $ 5,200 million.  In Katrina cyclone in USA in August 2005, 500,000 people were affected and the economic loss was estimated to be US $ 125,000 million http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane Katrina.  Likewise due to Nargis cyclone in Myanmar in May 2008, 2.42 million people were affected and the economic loss was US $ 4,000 million  http://www.emdat.be/search-details-disaster-list.  In December 2004 Tsunami in Indian Ocean basin costed an economic loss of US $ 7,791 million and some 2.27 million people were affected http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004 Indian Ocean earth quake and tsunami

The barrages have experienced new records of water flows.  According to the Federal Flood Commission, Guddu barrage has experienced a flood of 1.4 million cusecs whereas its designed capacity is 1.2 million cusecs which has been partially lost due to silting.  Likewise, the Sukkur barrage has experienced a flow of 1.48 million cusecs whereas its designed capacity is 0.9 million cusecs.

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