Floodwaters, driven by months of relentless rain and by extreme spring heat that accelerated the melting of glaciers, have covered a third of Pakistan, an area larger than England and Wales combined, affecting 33 million people.

More than 1,300 people have died, according to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, and the cost of the damage is estimated at $10 billion, with 1.6 million homes lost or damaged, 5,000 km (3,107 miles) of roads destroyed and over 700,000 livestock gone.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is scheduled to travel to hard-hit areas of the country this week to see the devastation from what he has termed “a monsoon on steroids”.

Across Pakistan, millions of families have lost their homes and belongings, crops, animals and even relatives, with many struggling just to find dry patches of land to erect tarpaulin shelters and keep themselves and their remaining livestock safe. Key roads and bridges have been washed away, hampering aid efforts and forcing authorities in some places to deliver limited emergency help mainly by costly helicopter.

Downed power cables presented an electrocution threat amid the standing water, he said - and with bridges to Karachi impassable, the area’s major supply route remains cut off.

Helicopters have dropped parcels of rice and beans but “it’s far too little” and villagers cannot cook it without kitchens or dry firewood, Baluch said via a patchy telephone line interrupted by the wail of the village call to prayer.

“We are living on open ground,” noted the 21-year-old university student, home for the summer from his studies in Islamabad. Many residents are angry, he added, “but most of them are just feeling helpless. There is no one to take care of them, and no one cares about them.”

Read the full article about floods in Pakistan from Thomson Reuters Foundation at Eco-Business.