Maryam Shah

ISLAMABAD: The catastrophic floods that have killed more than 1,200 people across Southeast Asia in recent weeks are not a distant warning for South Asia but &ldquo;a mirror of what Pakistan has already experienced and will face again,&rdquo; according to climate scientists.&nbsp;Across Indonesia and Sri Lanka, rapid heatwaves followed by early monsoon onset and cloudburst-style rainfall, the same sequence that devastated Pakistan in 2022 and again in 2025, have displaced more than 1.5 million people since late November.&nbsp;&ldquo;South Asia has entered &lsquo;new operating conditions&rsquo; where traditional monsoon timelines no longer apply,&rdquo; said Dr. Zainab Naeem, an environmental sciences researcher at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute. Speaking to Pakistan TV Digital, she added: &ldquo;What&rsquo;s happening in Southeast Asia right now mirrors exactly what we&#39;ve been experiencing in Pakistan.&rdquo;&nbsp;Parallel crises across regionIn Indonesia, the island of Sumatra recorded 604 deaths after a rare tropical storm triggered widespread flash floods and landslides. In Sri Lanka, Cyclone Ditwah killed at least 355 people and forced nearly 180,000 residents into emergency shelters. In both countries, prolonged dry spells were followed by sudden, moisture-laden systems that unleashed months&rsquo; worth of rainfall in a matter of days.&nbsp;Asia warming faster than global averageAccording to regional climate assessments, Asia is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, leading to more frequent and more intense extreme weather events. In 2023 alone, the continent experienced 79 water-related disasters, the majority of them floods and storms.&nbsp;Pakistan has already felt the force of this shift. The 2022 floods submerged one-third of the country, killed more than 1,700 people, and caused damages and economic losses estimated at $30 billion, according to the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment and World Bank figures.&nbsp;This year, unseasonably early monsoon systems again triggered deadly flooding across multiple provinces.&nbsp;Women face disproportionate impactsWomen remain at heightened risk during climate-driven disasters. During Pakistan&rsquo;s 2022 floods, the UN Population Fund estimated that 650,000 pregnant women were in affected areas, with around 73,000 expected to give birth without access to maternal health services.&nbsp;Protection systems frequently collapse in displacement camps, increasing incidents of gender-based violence. Women, who often work agricultural land without legally owning it, are also excluded from compensation schemes when crops are destroyed.&nbsp;Science&ndash;policy gap leaves countries exposedDespite growing scientific clarity, preparedness remains uneven across the region.&nbsp;&ldquo;The biggest problem is not the absence of policies, it&rsquo;s the disconnect between high-level frameworks and ground implementation,&rdquo; Dr. Naeem said. &ldquo;Technical expertise is missing in many departments. Without integrating scientific evidence into urban planning and governance, we simply cannot manage these impacts.&rdquo;&nbsp;Cities across South and Southeast Asia continue to expand into flood-prone zones, while drainage systems and protective infrastructure remain outdated or overstretched.&nbsp;Warning Pakistan cannot ignoreRescue operations in Indonesia and Sri Lanka are ongoing, with military aircraft airlifting patients from inundated hospitals and naval vessels delivering supplies to isolated districts. The events underscore a clear message for Pakistan: such disasters are no longer &ldquo;once in a generation.&rdquo;&nbsp;Regional environmental agencies stress the urgent need to strengthen early-warning systems, redesign land-use planning, and invest in climate-resilient infrastructure. Without such measures, they warn, human and economic losses will accelerate.&nbsp;Pakistan&rsquo;s 2022 floods were described as unprecedented. Three years later, similarly devastating events have become routine across Asia. The question is no longer whether such disasters will strike again, but whether governments will be prepared when they do.

A woman carrying a child wades through a flooded street after heavy rainfall in Wellampitiya on the outskirts of Colombo on November 30, 2025, after a powerful cyclone. (AFP)

Climate

Natural Disaster

In regions across Asia, intensifying heatwaves, early monsoons and extreme floods are overwhelming communities, exposing weak infrastructure and highlighting urgent need for climate-resilient planning protection.

Southeast Asia’s deadly floods echo Pakistan’s escalating climate extremes

BANDA ACEH: Governments and aid groups in Indonesia and Sri Lanka worked to rush aid on Tuesday to hundreds of thousands stranded by deadly flooding that has killed around 1,200 people in four countries.&nbsp; Torrential monsoon season deluges, paired with two separate tropical cyclones last week, dumped heavy rain across all of Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia&#39;s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia. Climate change is producing more intense rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and warmer oceans can turbocharge storms. The floodwaters have now largely receded, but the devastation means hundreds of thousands of people are now living in shelters and struggling to secure clean water and food. In Indonesia&#39;s Aceh, one of the worst-affected regions, residents told AFP that survivors who could afford to were stockpiling supplies. &quot;Road access is mostly cut off in flood-affected areas,&quot; 29-year-old Erna Mardhiah said as she joined a long queue at a petrol station in Banda Aceh. &quot;People are worried about running out of fuel,&quot; she added from the line she had been in for two hours. The pressure has caused skyrocketing prices. &quot;Most things are already sky-high... chillies alone are up to 300,000 rupiah per kilo ($18), so that&#39;s probably why people are panic-buying,&quot; she said. On Monday, Indonesia&#39;s government said it was sending 34,000 tons of rice and 6.8 million litres of cooking oil to the three worst-affected provinces, Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra. &quot;There can be no delays,&quot; Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said. Food shortage riskAid groups said they were working to ship supplies to affected areas, warning that local markets were running out of essential supplies and prices had tripled already. &quot;Communities across Aceh are at severe risk of food shortages and hunger if supply lines are not reestablished in the next seven days,&quot; charity group Islamic Relief said. A shipment of 12 tonnes of food from the group aboard an Indonesian navy vessel was due to arrive in Aceh on Tuesday. At least 631 people were killed in the floods across Sumatra, and 472 are still listed as missing. A million people have evacuated from their homes, according to the disaster agency. Survivors have described terrifying waves of water that arrived without warning. In East Aceh, Zamzami said the floodwaters had been &quot;unstoppable, like a tsunami wave.&quot; &quot;We can&#39;t explain how big the water seemed; it was truly extraordinary,&quot; said the 33-year-old, who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name. People in his village sheltered atop a local two-storey fish market to escape the deluge and were now trying to clean the mud and debris left behind while battling power and telecommunications outages. &quot;It&#39;s difficult for us (to get) clean water,&quot; he told AFP on Monday. &quot;There are children who are starting to get fevers, and there&#39;s no medicine.&quot; The weather system that inundated Indonesia also brought heavy rain to southern Thailand, where at least 176 people were killed. Across the border in Malaysia, two more people were killed. Colombo floodwaters recede&nbsp;A separate storm brought heavy rains across all of Sri Lanka, triggering flash floods and deadly landslides that killed at least 390 people. Another 352 remain missing, and some of the worst-hit areas in the country&#39;s centre are still difficult to reach. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency to deal with what he called the &quot;most challenging natural disaster in our history&quot;. Unlike his Indonesian counterpart, he has called for international aid. Sri Lanka&#39;s air force, backed by counterparts from India and Pakistan, has been evacuating stranded residents and delivering food and other supplies. In the mountainous Welimada region, security forces on Monday recovered the bodies of 11 residents buried by mudslides, a local official said. In the capital Colombo meanwhile, floodwaters were slowly subsiding on Tuesday. The speed with which waters rose around the city surprised local residents used to seasonal flooding. &quot;Every year we experience minor floods, but this is something else,&quot; delivery driver Dinusha Sanjaya told AFP. &quot;It is not just the amount of water, but how quickly everything went under.&quot; Rains have eased across the country, but landslide alerts remain in force across most of the hardest-hit central region, officials said.

A youth carries an elderly man as they wade through a flooded street after heavy rainfall in Wellampitiya on the outskirts of Colombo on November 30, 2025. (AFP)

Deadly floods across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia have killed around 1,200 people and displaced over a million. Governments and aid groups race to deliver food, clean water, and supplies as devastated regions face shortages and rising prices.

Race to get aid to Asia flood survivors as toll nears 1,200 

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump hosted all five Central Asian leaders on Thursday for the first time, a few months after they held separate summits with Russia&rsquo;s Vladimir Putin and China&rsquo;s Xi Jinping. The West has increased its interest in the resource-rich region, where Moscow&rsquo;s traditional influence has been questioned since the Kremlin&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine and where China is also a major player. &lsquo;Incredible importance&rsquo; of rare earths&ldquo;We&rsquo;re strengthening our economic partnerships, improving our security cooperation, and expanding our overall bonds,&rdquo; Trump said before a dinner with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. &ldquo;One of the key items on our agenda is critical minerals,&rdquo; Trump said at the so-called &ldquo;C5+1&rdquo; meeting. He hailed the countries&rsquo; &ldquo;incredible importance and unbelievable potential.&rdquo; On social media afterward, Trump announced &ldquo;an incredible trade and economic deal&rdquo; with Uzbekistan, which he said included Tashkent investing nearly $35 billion over three years &mdash; and more than $100 billion in a decade &mdash; in key US sectors such as aviation, critical minerals, agriculture, and IT. The United States and European Union are drawn by the region&rsquo;s huge &mdash; but still mostly unexploited &mdash; natural resources as they try to diversify their rare earth supplies and reduce dependence on Beijing. Kazakhstan is the world&rsquo;s largest uranium producer, Uzbekistan has giant gold reserves, and Turkmenistan is rich in gas. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are also opening up new mineral deposits. But exploiting these vast reserves remains complicated in the impoverished states with harsh and remote terrains. Almost as large as the EU but home to only about 75 million people, Central Asia is landlocked and covered by deserts and mountains. It is sandwiched between countries that have strained ties with the West: Russia to the north, China to the east, and Iran and Afghanistan to the south. &lsquo;Sent by heaven&rsquo;&nbsp;Trump&rsquo;s counterparts did not hesitate in offering praise to their host. &ldquo;You are the great leader, statesman, sent by heaven to bring back common sense and traditions that we all share and value,&rdquo; gushed Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was no less effusive. &ldquo;Before that, none of the presidents of the United States of America ever treated Central Asia as you do,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;In Uzbekistan, we call you the president of the world.&rdquo; The five landlocked countries, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have put on a united front for diplomacy. China &mdash; which shares borders with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan &mdash; has presented itself as a main commercial partner for the region, investing in huge infrastructure projects. The ex-Soviet republics still see Moscow as a strategic partner but have been spooked by its invasion of Ukraine. Abraham AccordsThe biggest announcement of the day was that Kazakhstan will join the Abraham Accords between Israel and mainly Muslim nations, in a largely symbolic move aimed at boosting Trump&rsquo;s push for Middle East peace. Kazakhstan will be the first country to join since the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan signed up to normalize ties with Israel in 2020. The Central Asian republic has already had diplomatic ties with Israel for decades, but US Vice President JD Vance said Kazakhstan&rsquo;s decision would nevertheless boost the initiative&rsquo;s &ldquo;momentum.&rdquo; Several states in the Middle East have refused to join the accords so far, most notably Saudi Arabia. Muffled human rightsFor Trump, who has expressed admiration for hard-line regimes, economic cooperation with Central Asia has taken precedence over promoting democratic values. While the region has opened up to tourism and foreign investment, rights groups have sounded the alarm over the further deterioration of civil freedoms. &ldquo;The summit is taking place while all participating governments have increased efforts to stifle dissent, silence the media, and retaliate against critics at home and abroad,&rdquo; Human Rights Watch said in a statement ahead of the talks.

(L-R) US Vice President JD Vance, US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend a dinner with Central Asian leaders in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 6, 2025. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)

Central Asia

US President Donald Trump hosted all five Central Asian leaders on Thursday for the first time, a few months after they held separate summits with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.

Articles tagged with "Asia"

Southeast Asia’s deadly floods echo Pakistan’s escalating climate extremes

Race to get aid to Asia flood survivors as toll nears 1,200

Trump hails Central Asia's 'unbelievable potential' at White House summit