Attachments
More than three months after floods first struck
Pakistan, flood waters lingered west of the Indus River. At the beginning
of November, the high waters were receding, but only slowly.
Acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer(MODIS) on
NASA's Terra satellite,
these false-color images show a portion of the Indus River and irrigated
land to the west. The images document the formation of a massive floodwater
lake terminating in Manchhar (or Manchar) Lake.
All of these images use a combination of
infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and land.
Clouds appear in varying shades of light blue-green. Vegetation is green,
and bare ground is pinkish brown. Water varies in color from electric blue
to navy.
The top image is from July 19, 2010, just
as monsoon floods began to affect northern Pakistan. The thin Indus River
follows a meandering path toward the sea. Water channeled by irrigation
works flows away from the river toward the west. Manchhar Lake is an isolated
water body in the south.
The second image is from September 3, 2010,
after floods have devastated much of the country. The Indus River narrows
at Sukkur where a barrage modifies
water flow, but water fills the river valley north and south of the barrage.
Thanks to a dam failure north of Sukkur, vast amounts of water have been
channeled west of the river and now sit on areas that had been cultivated
or settled land. Nevertheless, Manchhar Lake remains mostly isolated from
flood waters to the north.
The third image is from October 2, 2010.
The Indus River's levels have fallen back to near-normal levels, though
the river valley appears mostly free of vegetation, perhaps filled with
saturated mud. While water levels have fallen in the Indus, a massive floodwater
lake forms a giant arc west of the river, extending from well north of
Sukkur to Manchhar Lake.
The bottom image is from November 1, 2010.
Compared to one month before, water levels have fallen in the floodwater
lake, but only slightly. Manchhar Lake remains connected to flood waters
to the north.
On October 29, CNN reported that large areas
in Pakistan's Sindh Province remained underwater and some 7 million Pakistanis
still lacked adequate shelter. Despite the prolonged hardship, Oxfam stated
that international aid was dwindling. On November 1, the International
Committee of the Red Cross reported that, although the threat of waterborne
gastrointestinal disease was receding, the threat of mosquito-borne disease,
such as malaria, was rising, thanks to stagnant pools of water in low-lying,
poorly drained areas. Prolonged inundation of cropland also increased the
hazard of malnutrition.