Flood-hit Pakistan breaches lake in bid to save densely populated cities

Water levels in Manchar Lake — located in the country’s southeastern Sindh province — reached dangerously high levels on Sunday, prompting authorities to deliberately breach the lake, according to Jamal Mangan, Pakistan’s Irrigation Special Secretary.Water released from the lake flowed into the nearby districts of Jaffarabad and Bubak, with the aim of sparing more populated cities and towns across Sindh, including Sehwan, Dadu and Bhan Syedabad, from the worst of the flooding, according to Mangan.Record monsoon rains that have lashed Pakistan and”In the dryer areas, survivors are telling us that one difference now for them is the prices of the food, because the roads are inaccessible. It is four times the prices of the market. They cannot afford to eat,” she said. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on August 30 the floods were “the worst in the country’s history” and estimated the calamity had caused more than $10 billion in damages to infrastructure, homes and farms.According to charity Action Against Hunger, 27 million people in the country did not have access to enough food prior the floods, and now the risk of widespread hunger is even more imminent.Additional reporting from Reuters