Waiting for the water that swallowed their homes to recede, women in Chung, a settlement on Lahore's outskirts, have limited access to sanitary pads and essential medicines, including pregnancy-related care.
Shumaila Riaz, 19-years-old and seven months pregnant with her first child, spent the past four days in the relief camp, enduring pregnancy cramps.
"I wanted to think about the child I am going to have, but now, I am not even certain about my own future," she told AFP.
Clad in dirty clothes they have worn for days and with unbrushed hair, women huddle in the overcrowded school hosting more than 2,000 people, surrounded by mud and stagnant rainwater.
"My body aches a lot and I can't get the medicines I want here," said 19-year-old Fatima, mother to a one-year-old daughter and four months pregnant.
"I used to eat as I please, sleep as I please, walk as I please -- that is all gone now. I can't do that here," added Fatima, who asked AFP not to use her real name.
Monsoon rains over the past week swelled three major rivers that cut through Punjab province, Pakistan's agricultural heartland and home to nearly half of its 255 million people.
The number of affected people rose on Sunday to more than two million, according to provincial senior minister Marriyum Aurangzeb.
Around 750,000 people have been evacuated, of whom 115,000 were rescued by boat -- making it the largest rescue operation in Punjab's history, according to the provincial government.
The flooded rivers have affected mostly rural areas near their banks but heavy rain also flooded urban areas, including several parts of Lahore -- the country's second-largest city.
While South Asia's seasonal monsoon brings rainfall that farmers depend on, climate change is making the phenomenon more erratic, and deadly, across the region.
Landslides and floods triggered by heavier-than-usual monsoon rains have killed more than 850 people nationwide since June.
The latest downpour has killed at least 32 people, the provincial minister said on Sunday.
- Infections and trauma -
Sleeping in tents held together with thin wooden sticks, women displaced by the floods struggle to get sanitary pads and clean clothes when theirs are stained by blood from their periods.
Menstruation remains a taboo topic in Pakistan, with many women discouraged from speaking about it.
"We are struggling to get pads for when we get our period. And even if we do, there are no proper bathrooms to use," said Aleema Bibi, 35, as her baby slept on a sheet soiled with mud.
"We go to the homes nearby to use the bathroom," she added.
Jameela, who uses only one name, said she seeks privacy in a makeshift bathroom next to a cowshed.
"We wait for men in these homes to leave, so that we can go use the bathrooms and change our pads," she said.
Outside the medical truck beside the relief camp, a concerned woman asked where to take her eight-month-pregnant daughter-in-law who had gone into labour, AFP journalists saw.
The pregnant women are also vulnerable to infectious diseases, according to doctors in the medical camp set up by a local NGO.
"I receive around 200 to 300 patients every day with different infections and water-borne diseases," said Fahad Abbas, 27, a doctor at the medical camp.
"There are a lot of patients here who are going through psychological trauma, especially women and children, after losing their homes."
Even without the crisis of a flood, 675 babies under one month old die every day in Pakistan, along with 27 women in perinatal stages from preventable complications, according to the World Health Organization.
Another woman, who wanted to stay anonymous, said the medicine she once used to manage her period cramps was now too difficult to buy.
"We escaped death, but this misery is no less than death either," Jameela said.
Pakistan evacuates half a million people stranded by floods
Lahore, Pakistan (AFP) Aug 30, 2025 -
Nearly half a million people have been displaced by flooding in eastern Pakistan after days of heavy rain swelled rivers, relief officials said Saturday, as they carried out a massive rescue operation.
Three transboundary rivers that cut through Punjab province, which borders India, have swollen to exceptionally high levels, affecting more than 2,300 villages.
Nabeel Javed, the head of the Punjab government's relief services, said 481,000 people stranded by the floods have been evacuated, along with 405,000 livestock.
Overall, more than 1.5 million people have been affected by the flooding.
"This is the biggest rescue operation in Punjab's history," Irfan Ali Khan, the head of the province's disaster management agency, added at a press conference.
He said more than 800 boats and over 1,300 rescue personnel were involved in evacuating families from affected areas, mostly located in rural areas near the banks of the three rivers.
The latest spell of monsoon flooding since the start of the week has killed 30 people, he said, with hundreds left dead throughout the heavier than usual season that began in June.
"No human life is being left unattended. All kinds of rescue efforts are continuing," Khan said.
More than 500 relief camps have been set up to provide shelter to families and their livestock.
In the impoverished town of Shahdara, on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Lahore, dozens of families were gathered in a school after fleeing the rising water in their homes.
"Look at all the women sitting with me -- they're helpless and distressed. Everyone has lost everything. Their homes are gone, their belongings destroyed. We couldn't even manage to bring clothes for their children," 40-year-old cleaner Tabassum Suleman told AFP.
Rains continued throughout Saturday, including in Lahore, the country's second-largest city, where an entire housing development was half submerged by water.
Retired shop owner Sikandar Mughal attempted to access his home but the water was still too high.
"When the situation got worse and the water level reached the garage of my house, I took my bike and ran for my life," the 61-year-old said.
"It's been two days now since I left. I did not even get a chance to get my clothes so that I could change."
In mid-August, more than 400 Pakistanis were killed in a matter of days by landslides caused by torrential rains on the other side of the country, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, close to Afghanistan and the only province held by the opposition to the federal authorities.
In 2022, unprecedented monsoon floods submerged a third of Pakistan, with the southern province of Sindh the worst affected area.
'Ruins': Pakistan's Punjab reels from flood surge
Wazirabad, Pakistan (AFP) Aug 28, 2025 -
Orange-vested rescue teams rowed through streets transformed into muddy rivers in Pakistan's Punjab province on Thursday, helping to pluck people and their livestock from flooded villages.
Water has gushed into the eastern province, Pakistan's breadbasket and home to about half of its 255 million people, with three transboundary rivers swelling beyond their banks.
The latest monsoon downpour has killed at least 13 people, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.
More than 1.4 million people living near the rivers have been affected by the floods, with over 265,000 evacuated, said Azma Bukhari, the provincial information minister.
In the city of Wazirabad, the receding fetid tide left behind mud, buzzing insects and the threat of disease.
Mother-of-four Nazia Nasir told AFP the army evacuated her family, who found their house collapsed upon their return.
"Everything we owned is lying in ruins," the 40-year-old said, clearing the mud away with her bare hands.
"My son has nothing to wear, he walks around in just a T-shirt. The crops we relied on for our livelihood are gone."
Nasima Bibi was not yet able to return to her submerged home, camping on higher ground on the roadside.
"I don't know what I will find but I have no other place to go. The sun has burnt my skin but I cannot leave," she said.
People living in the washed out area around an ancient Sikh temple in Kartarpur said no officials came to assist them, with the relief effort sporadic and some stranded in their homes as the waterline rose.
"Many homes were washed away and many people lost their cattle, roads were also ruined," Muhammad Asad Imam told AFP.
"People were given no boat in the area and confined to their houses."
Villager Rana Mubashir told AFP authorities rescued people in the Kartarpur temple complex, while the surrounding villagers begged for help.
"It's been three days since our area was flooded, but no official team has reached this area," he said.
"Our children had no milk or anything to eat or drink."
Nearby, men waded through waist-high stagnant brown water that filled the sprawling Kartarpur temple complex, where founder of the Sikh faith Guru Nanak is said to have died in 1539.
This year, landslides and floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed more than 800 people countrywide since June.
While South Asia's seasonal monsoon brings rainfall that farmers depend on, climate change is making the phenomenon more erratic, unpredictable and deadly across the region.
Touring the flood-affected areas on Thursday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif emphasised the country's vulnerability to climate change-fuelled disasters.
Pakistani authorities have said spillover released from dams in neighbouring India increased the flow of water rushing downstream to Punjab.
Floods, landslides kill at least 11 in India's Jammu region
Srinagar, India (AFP) Aug 30, 2025 -
Floods and landslides triggered by record-breaking rain killed at least 11 people, including four children, in India's Jammu and Kashmir, officials said Saturday.
An intense monsoon rainstorm in the Indian-administered territory since Tuesday has caused widespread chaos, with raging water smashing into bridges and swamping homes.
A local disaster official told AFP that Ramban and Reasi districts were hit by heavy rainfall and landslides on Friday night, killing 11 people.
One child aged five was trapped in the debris and still missing, he added.
On Wednesday, a landslide slammed the pilgrimage route to the Hindu shrine of Vaishno Devi in Jammu, killing 41 people.
India's Meteorological Department said the torrential rain had smashed records at two locations in the region.
Jammu and Udhampur recorded their highest 24-hour rainfall on Wednesday, with 296 millimetres (11.6 inches) in Jammu, nine percent higher than the 1973 record, and 629.4 mm (24.8 inches) in Udhampur -- a staggering 84 percent surge over the 2019 mark.
Floods and landslides are common during the June-September monsoon season, but experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing their frequency, severity and impact.
Climate experts from the Himalayan-focused International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development warn that a spate of disasters illustrates the dangers when extreme rain combines with mountain slopes weakened by melting permafrost, as well as building developments in flood-prone valleys.
Powerful torrents driven by intense rain smashed into Chisoti village in Indian-administered Kashmir on August 14, killing at least 65 people and leaving another 33 missing.
Floods on August 5 overwhelmed the Himalayan town of Dharali in India's Uttarakhand state and buried it in mud. The likely death toll from that disaster is more than 70 but has not been confirmed.
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