Drought alert issued in Pakistan by Meteorological Department: Report
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ISLAMABAD
- The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has issued drought alert.
PMD has advised all the stakeholders to be ready to handle the situation as it is expected that dry conditions will cause water stress in the cultivated areas of the country due to limited supply of irrigation water for Kharif crops.
“Due to less water in Mangla reservoir and minimal expected rainfall during the next three months, farmers are likely to face water shortage for sowing Rabi crops,” warned the Met office.
Overall, Pakistan has received -24.4% below average rainfall from May to August this year while among provinces, Sindh has received the most insufficient rainfall during this period which is -69.5% followed by -49% in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and -45% in Balochistan.
This is the second time that the Met Office has issued a drought alert this year, earlier the first drought alert was issued in June as a result of insufficient rainfalls across the country from January to May.
According to the details shared by the Met Office, during July-August 2018, below normal rainfall was recorded over most of the southern parts of the country. The summer months (May-June) 2018 received (7%) above normal rainfall whereas during monsoon months (July-August) 2018, it was well below normal (-30.4%) and during (May-August) 2018, below normal (-24.4%) rainfall was recorded across Pakistan.
The moderate to severe drought is prevailing in most parts of Sindh, which includes Tharparkar, Mityari, Hyderabad, Jacobabad, Dadu, Karachi, Kambar Shadadkot, Umerkot, Sanghar, Sujawal, Shaheed Benzairabad, Jamshoro and Khairpur.
Dalbandin, Gwadar, Jiwani, Panjgur, Pasni, Nok Kundi, Ormara, Quetta and Turbat are among the areas affected by the drought.
Meanwhile, mild to moderate drought is prevailing at few places of southern Punjab including Multan and Mianwali and Bunji, Chilas, Gilgit and Gupis in Gilgit-Baltistan.
