US President says Pakistan ‘underwater’, other countries should help

President of the United States, Joe Biden, on Wednesday asked the world to step forward and stop the effects of climate change. While addressing the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, the American President said that Pakistan must be helped as the country remains under water after devastating floods hit the country.

In his address to the 193 member strong UNGA, the US President announced another $2.9 billion for a fund aimed at helping to resolve global food insecurity.

“Pakistan is still under water, needs help,” he said during the speech.

“Families are facing impossible choices, choosing which child to feed and wondering whether they’ll survive,” he said. “This is the human cost of climate change. And it’s growing, not lessening.”

Devastating floods in Pakistan have wreaked havoc across the country, leaving a path of destruction and loss in their wake. More than 1,599 people have lost their lives, one-third of whom are children.

Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers triggered the disaster. The United Nations (UN) and Pakistan have linked the extreme weather to climate change; some 600,000 people have fled their homes.

As many as 33 million people of the 220 million South Asian nation have been affected in some way by the floods that swept away houses, roads, railways and bridges and submerged around 4 million acres of farmland.