It has been raining in Pakistan for the last four months. After a severe heat wave, rains and floods wreak havoc in Pakistan.
According to government figures, around 1,500 people have died in the floods, while tens of thousands of people, including women and children, are suffering from water-borne and communicable diseases, UNICEF said on Friday.
Officials say it may take two to six months for the water to drain. According to a report released by the South Sindh provincial government on Friday, the flood-affected areas were affected by diseases including malaria, dengue fever, diarrhoea and skin problems.
"Stagnant water is giving rise to water-borne diseases," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in his address to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit being held in Samarkand in Uzbekistan.
"Children getting malaria and diarrhoea... all kinds of diseases," he said, adding, "millions of people are living under the open sky."
Sindh reports that more than 90,000 people sought treatment in the worst-hit province on Thursday alone.
17,977 diarrhoea and 20,064 skin disease cases, 588 malaria cases and 10,604 suspected cases were reported on Thursday. A total of 2.3 million patients have sought treatment since July 1 in the field and mobile hospitals set up in flood-affected areas.
Record monsoon rains in Pakistan's southwest and melting glaciers in the north have led to floods. About 33 million people in the country were affected by the floods. Losses to homes, crops, bridges, roads, and livestock totalled nearly $30 billion.
Pakistan was already reeling from economic blows when the floods hit, with its foreign reserves falling to as low as one month's worth of imports and its current account deficit widening.
The National Disaster Management Authority has reported 1,508 deaths due to the floods so far, including 536 children and 308 women.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are suffering without food, shelter, clean drinking water, toilets and medicine.
Many sleep in the open beside the elevated highway.
"I have been in flood-affected areas for the past two days. The situation for families is beyond bleak, and the stories I heard paint a desperate picture," said Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan.
"All of us on the ground see malnourished children battling diarrhoea and malaria, dengue fever, and many with painful skin conditions," he said in a statement.
Millions of families are now living with little more than rags to protect themselves from the scorching sun as temperatures in some areas pass 40 degrees Celsius, Fadil said.
The torrential monsoon, which submerged huge swathes of Pakistan, was a one in a hundred-year event likely made more intense by climate change, scientists said on Thursday.
The country received 391 mm (15.4 inches) of rain, or some 190% more than the 30-year average through July and August, a monsoon spell that started early and stretched beyond the usual timeline. Rainfall in the southern province of Sindh shot up to 466% of the average.