Archbishop Coutts on high death toll of Karachi heatwave

Archbishop Coutts on high death toll of Karachi heatwave

(Vatican Radio)  The death toll from a massive heatwave in Karachi, Pakistan sets at more than 1,300 people.  Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi is also the National Director of Caritas Internationalis in Pakistan.  Philippa Hitchen sat down with Archbishop Coutts to talk about how the situation could’ve reached such a tragic level and how Caritas is helping with the situation.

Karachi, a sea port

When asked how the situation could’ve reached such tragic proportions, Archbishop Coutts noted that Karachi is a humid climate, being a sea port, and that, when temperatures reach 40 degrees Celsius, it becomes quite stifling.  Another contributing factor is the large population.  “The population” he said, “is estimated at anywhere between eighteen and twenty million people.”

Many of those who have died are homeless persons “and its people living in the poor areas, the slum areas in very crowded conditions with small rooms, not properly ventilated.”

Caritas’ role

“Pakistan is quite disaster prone”, the Archbishop said, citing the earthquake of 2005 and the massive flooding in 2010 and 2013 which killed many people.

These natural disasters "may have to do with climate change”, he said, “because our rivers are fed by snow melt in the high mountains in the north.  Climate scientists are telling us that our glaciers up north are melting much faster than normal.”

Caritas’ role includes rapid response to these disasters, and “we’ve been doing a lot in preparing the people in disaster risk reduction to prepare the people living in flood prone areas in how they should respond in order to save lives.  This is an ongoing thing which we are much more involved in.”

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