Global Warming - a Possible Factor in Pakistan's Floods

Global warming and greenhouse gas pollution could have caused Pakistan's destructive floods, reports a British technical services organization.

Moody International Pakistan Managing Director, Rashid Mehr, said that environmentalists around the world and his organization believed that global warming was likely to be making extreme events worse.

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"For example, when there is more heat in the atmosphere, it holds more water and, therefore, floods in places like Pakistan are heavier," The Daily Times quoted Mehr, as saying.

"If we have these types of extreme weather patterns then climate change has loaded the dice so there is more risk of bad things happening," he added.

He further pointed out that dramatic weather patterns are consistent with changes in the climate caused by mankind and "ill-planned and loosely-supervised industries".

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"These are events, which reproduce and intensify in a climate disturbed by greenhouse gas pollution," Mehr said.

The floods, triggered by torrential monsoon downpours last month, have claimed the lives of over 1,600 people.

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The Pakistan Army is leading the relief effort by evacuating people, distributing drinking water, food, medical aid and repairing bridges and roads.

The floods first struck the western province of Baluchistan on July 22 before inundating the worst-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and then entering Punjab and Sindh.

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Source-ANI