Nearly 1000 people killed in Pakistan floods as diaspora in Australia bands together to help

Pakistan Floods

Displaced people carry belongings after they salvaged usable items from their flood-hit home as they wade through a flooded area in Jaffarabad, a district of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province. Source: AP / Zahid Hussain/AP

A state of emergency has been declared in Pakistan, where heavy monsoons and flash flooding has killed 1,000 people. As the country's prime minister calls for international aid, members of the Pakistani diaspora in Australia are gathering supplies to send to those hardest hit.


Pakistan's government has called for urgent international aid in one of the country's worst disasters.

It's Pakistan's worst monsoon season on record, leaving more than half the country under water.

The destruction stretches across much of the country.

In Australia, the Pakistani community is collecting essentials to help those hardest hit.

Rukhshanda Zaman is the president of the Sabeel-E-Mustafa Foundation.

She's appealing to the Australian community to donate used clothes, blankets, bed sheets, tarps and tents.

"We want people to come forward and bring it to us and we are arranging containers to be shipped to Pakistan for that relief for those flood affected areas. And we're doing this in multiple states. We are doing it in Sydney in multiple locations and there are collection centres in Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, Melbourne and Wollongong area as well."

Zeeshan Iqbal is also from the Foundation, as well as the Pakistani Community in Australia group.

Rallying the community in Sydney to organise aid and supplies, he had this message for the Australian government.

"We want the government and we appeal to the Prime Minister [[Anthony Albanese]] to send aid to Pakistan because it’s the right time and we really appreciate if something can be sent in the form of aid."

The Foundation says donations of new and used tents are desperately needed, as many of the displaced in Pakistan will be homeless for months - some even years.

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