Pakistan on nationwide alert as heavy rain and flooding threaten

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan has entered a period its disaster management agency calls “critical.” The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Sunday issued a nationwide alert, warning of thunderstorms, heavy rain, urban flooding and an elevated risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) across the country’s northern areas within the next 12 to 24 hours.

The alert identified the Hunza and Skardu areas in the mountainous northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan and the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the most vulnerable to a potential climate disaster. Authorities also warned of flooding in the capital Islamabad and other urban areas, including Rawalpindi and surrounding districts. Provincial and district administrations have been placed on high alert and directed to keep drainage systems clear.

The warning comes as Pakistan prepares for a fourth consecutive monsoon season, expected to arrive later this month. Last year, monsoon rains in Pakistan killed more than 1,000 people, including 275 children, and displaced three million people.

The historic floods of 2022 – driven largely by glacial melt and submerging nearly a third of the country – put Pakistan on the front line of the global climate crisis. Pakistan contributes less than 1% of global emissions but is consistently among the five most climate-vulnerable nations.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, temperatures this year hit a record 48.5 degrees Celsius, breaking the previous high set in 1971. The heat has been melting glaciers at an accelerated rate, swelling and bursting lakes across the ecologically sensitive region. Pakistan is home to about 13,000 glaciers – more than anywhere else outside the polar ice caps – and global warming is rapidly melting them.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), melting glaciers across Pakistan’s Hindu Kush, Himalaya and Karakoram ranges have formed more than 3,000 glacial lakes in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Of these, 33 are assessed as prone to dangerous outbursts, with more than 7.1 million people living nearby exposed to harm. Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) release millions of cubic meters of water and debris within hours, destroying bridges, farms and entire downstream communities.

In partnership with UNDP, Pakistan in 2017 launched the Scaling-up of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Risk Reduction (GLOF-II) project, covering 24 valleys across 15 districts in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The initiative focuses on early warning systems, protective flood infrastructure and community-based disaster preparedness.

However, Zakir Hussain, director-general of the Gilgit-Baltistan Disaster Management Authority, said the coverage of Pakistan’s early warning infrastructure is widely misunderstood. The GLOF-II project covers only 16 selected valleys – not the whole of Gilgit-Baltistan – and within those valleys, only certain limited sites. Many areas hardest hit in 2025, including Ghizer, Diamer and parts of Hunza, have no early warning systems at all.

“The problem there is the complete absence of coverage,” Hussain said. “The only exception is Shishper in Hunza valley. That is the only case where there is an early warning system, but it did not generate a warning even though the glacier changed its behavior. In the other cases, these are very different problems, and we should be clear about the distinction.”

The 2022 floods remain the benchmark for how devastating climate disaster can be in Pakistan. They killed nearly 1,700 people, displaced more than 30 million, caused $14.8 billion in property damage and wiped $15.2 billion from Pakistan’s gross domestic product. Pakistan held a donor conference in Geneva in January 2023, where about $11 billion was pledged by various countries and international financial institutions for flood recovery. But according to the UN humanitarian coordination agency (OCHA), only about $4.5 billion had been disbursed by June 2025, mostly for housing, transport and flood risk management projects.

Hussain was blunt about the shortfall: “It is evident that the parties who attended the conference did not take up their responsibility in transferring funds, transferring technology and building the capacity of nations that are suffering the consequences of carbon emissions from the developed world.” He added that the country’s vulnerability is compounded not only by a lack of infrastructure but also by a lack of coordination among different agencies.

“There’s no single authoritative source of truth,” he said. “What one agency accepts, another does not, and that creates administrative hurdles and breakdowns in response. Integrating forecasts with response indicators is where the work needs to be done.”