PARIS: Rainfall 10 times heavier than usual caused Pakistan’s devastating floods, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday (Sep 1), as it released satellite images of a vast lake created by the overflowing Indus river.
Rains, described by United Nations chief Antonio Guterres as a “monsoon on steroids” have claimed hundreds of lives since June, unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.
Data from the European Union’s Copernicus satellite has been used to map the scale of the deluge from space to help the rescue efforts, the ESA said in a statement.
“Heavy monsoon rainfall – 10 times heavier than usual – since mid-June have led to more than a third of the country now being underwater,” it said.
The agency released images from the satellite showing an area where the Indus River has overflowed “effectively creating a long lake, tens of kilometres wide”, between the cities of Dera Murad Jamali and Larkana.