JACOBABAD: Rahim Buksh’s forefathers have worked in the wheat and rice fields that surround Pakistan’s hottest city for generations, so they are accustomed to hot summers and monsoon rains.However, this year Jacobabad lurched from enormous rainstorms in August to record heatwaves in May that drowned crops.In spite of their strong attachment to the land, the floods caused tens of thousands of people to evacuate to temporary camps and the houses of relatives, forcing them to question the future of farm employment.
If someone could help us get out of here, we would migrate to the cities and start working as manual labourers, said Buksh, whose mud-brick home was inundated along with much of the nearby fields.Poor infrastructure had long plagued Jacobabad and other neighbouring communities, even before the devastation.
The majority of the district’s million-plus residents, who work as itinerant farm labourers for major landowners, make a daily pay tending crops.Their way of life has always been unstable due to poverty, debt, and the unequal distribution of land, but the growth of extreme weather events linked to climate change has made the situation much more hazardous.
First burnt by temperatures reaching 51 degrees Celsius in May, this year’s crops were then drowned by unprecedented monsoon rains ,that devastated a third of the nation.Zamira, 25, who escaped with her husband and children to a temporary camp, said, “We have to live with it all.Poor infrastructure had long plagued Jacobabad and other neighbouring communities, even before the devastation.
The majority of the district’s million-plus residents, who work as itinerant farm labourers for major landowners, make a daily pay tending crops.Their way of life has always been unstable due to poverty, debt, and the unequal distribution of land, but the growth of extreme weather events linked to climate change has made the situation much more hazardous.
First burnt by temperatures reaching 51 degrees Celsius in May, this year’s crops were then drowned by unprecedented monsoon rains that devastated a third of the nation.Zamira, 25, who escaped with her husband and children to a temporary camp, said, “We have to live with it all.
