At least three months required to drain out floodwater in Sindh: CM

Islamabad: Three to six months will be required to drain out rain and floodwater from submerged areas of Sindh province of Pakistan, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said on Sunday.
"Flooding and rainfall have destroyed thousands of houses in Sindh with around 1500 deaths," the Chief Minister told reporters as quoted by ARY News. Shah was accompanied by the acting governor of Sindh Siraj Durrani. "The people have lost livestock of around 50 billion rupees," Sindh Chief Minister said.
Commenting on power load shedding in scorching weather in Karachi, the chief minister said: "We have communicated to the prime minister and the power division that we are not satisfied with the performance of the power supply companies".
The flash floods have badly impacted 80 districts of Pakistan and the death toll from floods in the country has reached nearly 1,200.
Recently, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) also raised concerns for providing healthcare facilities to almost 650,000 pregnant women in flood-affected areas in Pakistan.
"Almost 650,000 pregnant women in the flood-affected areas require maternal health services to ensure a safe pregnancy and childbirth," UNFPA said in an official statement.
"Up to 73,000 women expected to deliver next month will need skilled birth attendants, newborn care, and support," the UN agency added, reported ARY News.
UN Secretary-General who was on a two-day visit to Pakistan landed on Friday to express solidarity with the country's people drenched by extreme monsoon rains that have led to the country's worst flooding in a decade.
Record monsoon and heavy floods in Pakistan have given rise to hunger and various illnesses which have affected 33 million people and the experts believe that the situation would aggravate in the coming days as the flood affectees are forced to live under the sky depriving the required resources.
Huge areas of the country are still underwater and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes.
In the wake of severe floods, the initially estimated losses have accumulated in the range of USD 18 billion, Pakistan's agriculture sector faces the worst blow as the agriculture growth might remain zero or slide into negative against the envisaged target of 3.9 per cent for the current financial year 2022-23.
The catastrophic floods displaced more than 33 million people and are estimated to have caused USD 30 billion of damage. (ANI)