Floods: Families 'can't catch a break'

LAHORE:

Perched on her neighbour's rooftop, Ghulam Bano gazes down at the remains of her home, submerged in murky, foul-smelling floodwater that has engulfed much of Punjab.

Bano moved to Shahdara town last year, on the outskirts of Lahore, to avoid the choking smog pollution of Pakistan's second-largest city, only to have her new beginning overturned by raging floods.

"My husband had started coughing blood and his condition just kept getting worse when the smog hit," Bano told AFP, walking through muddy streets.

Pakistan regularly ranks among the world's most polluted countries, with Lahore often the most polluted megacity between November and February.

"I thought the smog was bad enough — I never thought it could be worse with the floods," she said.

Her impoverished neighbourhood is home to thousands of low-lying homes crammed together on narrow streets.

The nearby overflowing Ravi river flooded many of them, forcing dozens of families to take refuge in an elementary school on higher ground, where doctors were treating people for skin infections linked to the flood water.

More heavy rain is predicted over the weekend, including warnings of increased urban flooding in Lahore, which borders India.

With her husband bedridden from tuberculosis, worsened by the relentless smog, Bano became the sole provider in a household struggling to breathe, survive, and endure the floods.

"I ate today after two days. There is no clean water to drink. I left my daughter at a relative's place and stayed back hoping the water recedes," she said.

Landslides and floods triggered by heavier-than-usual monsoon rains have killed more than 800 people nationwide since June this year.