Aamir Hussain sits on the top of his house in southern Pakistan, his head encircled by a tornado of mosquitoes, inspecting the foul floods all about.
The standing water has curdled into a pestilent soup that breeds malaria, cholera, and dengue four months after the onset of the monsoon rains, which are connected to climate change and are at record levels.
The UN has warned of a “second wave” of disaster, with the possibility that the 1,700 people who drowned and died from electrocution in the initial cascade could be outnumbered by those who die from water-borne illness and starvation.
The chance that Hussain’s wife and two children would contract the bugs when darkness falls in his drowned village in Sindh’s Dadu district also approaches.
The 25-year-old spoke from atop a brickwork complex that framed a courtyard covered in foul, sucking muck. “The mosquitoes bite a lot and we get sick,” he added.
His brother, who lives here with them, has previously climbed down from the roof to pay for medical treatment for his ill kids with borrowed money.
Hussain, a mother whose young boy has been unwell, stated, “Some of our nets have ripped already, so we are scared.”
The devastating flooding that submerged a third of Pakistan, caused 8 million people to be homeless, wrecked or damaged 2 million houses, paralysed 1,500 hospitals and clinics, and cost an estimated $28 billion in damages has been worst in Sindh.
