Perched on her neighbour’s rooftop, Ghulam Bano gazes down at the remains of her home, submerged in murky, foul-smelling floodwater that has engulfed much of Punjab.
Monsoon rains this week swelled three transboundary rivers that cut through Punjab, the country’s agricultural heartland and home to nearly half of its 255 million people.
Bano moved to Shahdara last year, on the outskirts of Lahore, to avoid the choking smog pollution of Pakistan’s second-largest city, only to have her new beginning overturned by raging floods.
“My husband had started coughing blood and his condition just kept getting worse when the smog hit,” Bano told AFP, walking through muddy streets.
“I thought the smog was bad enough — I never thought it could be worse with the floods,” she said.
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