ISLAMABAD: Nearly seven million people were affected by monsoon floods in Pakistan last year, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a report, with the disaster killing more than 1,000 people including women and children.
Pakistan is considered one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change and extreme weather, which has faced increasingly frequent heatwaves, floods, and droughts in recent years.
More than 2.5 million people were temporarily displaced by the floods, while over three million were rescued or evacuated, the report said, adding that displacement levels gradually fell by the end of 2025.
“According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs) consolidated reporting for the year 2025, the foods affected approximately 6.9 million people nationwide including 4.7 million in Punjab, 1.6 million in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 356,000 in Gilgit-Baltistan, and 185,000 in Sindh,” the IFRC said in a report.
“The disaster caused between 1,037 deaths and nearly 1,000 injuries, with women, children, and vulnerable groups disproportionately affected.”
The report highlighted that around 54 percent of households in affected districts did not have access to safe drinking water while 34 percent of illnesses were associated with dirty water consumption.
It said access to sanitation facilities also remained limited, with approximately 36 percent of households in the affected districts reporting difficulties in accessing toilet facilities.
In 2022, monsoon floods inundated one-third of the country and affected around 33 million people, causing over 1,700 deaths and inflicting $14.9 billion in damages, according to the NDMA.
Pakistan has repeatedly urged developed nations to operationalize the Loss and Damage Fund to support climate-vulnerable countries, arguing that it bears the brunt of increasingly frequent floods and other climate-related disasters despite contributing only about one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
