After visiting with victims, Hollywood actress and philanthropist Angelina Jolie said the flood tragedy in Pakistan should serve as a “wake-up call” about climate change. She also called for greater international help.
According to the most recent official statistics, Pakistan has been battered by extraordinary monsoon downpours that have flooded a third of the nation, an area the size of the United Kingdom, and killed close to 1,600 people.
More than seven million people have been forced to from their homes, and many of them are now living in improvised tents without mosquito nets and sometimes without much access to clean drinking water or restrooms.
In video posted on Thursday, Jolie, who had previously been to Pakistan to see those affected by fatal earthquake in 2005 and devastating floods in 2010, said, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“I wholeheartedly support you in calling on the international community to take more action… At a gathering of civil and military authorities in the nation’s capital Islamabad, she said, “I believe this is a huge wake-up call to the globe about where we are at.”
“Climate change is not only real and coming; it is now very much here.”
In southern Sindh province, one of the most severely damaged districts, Jolie, who is a representative for the UNHCR, met with displaced flood victims living in camps.
Malnutrition as well as infections including dengue, malaria, cholera, and diarrhea have been predicted by the UN as a “second tragedy.”
Jolie said, “I have been talking to individuals and worrying that if enough help doesn’t arrive, they won’t be here in the next weeks, they won’t make it.”
Scientists have connected climate change to the monsoon rains, which broke records.