Large areas of Punjab are under water as rivers continue to flood, with more rain forecast. In Sialkot, rainfall broke records with nearly 364 mm falling in just 24 hours, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department. Children and their families need food, clean water and healthcare after fast-flowing waters and torrential rains forced more than 200,000 people to leave their homes.
ISLAMABAD, 28 August 2025 – More than 200 children have lost their lives due to torrential monsoon rains across Pakistan since the end of June, with millions missing days of school as rainfall breaks records, Save the Children said.
Large areas of Punjab are under water as rivers continue to flood, with more rain forecast. In Sialkot, rainfall broke records with nearly 364 mm falling in just 24 hours, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department. Children and their families need food, clean water and healthcare after fast-flowing waters and torrential rains forced more than 200,000 people to leave their homes.
About 1 million people are currently affected by the floods across Pakistan, according to the UN, and that number could increase as water moves downstream to neighbouring Sindh province, the epicentre of the unprecedented floods in 2022 [1].
About 25 million children in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province , have not returned to school, two weeks after the summer break was supposed to end. Elementary schools for children aged 5 to 13 – about 70% of all schools – remain closed in the province [2].
Children in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lost a week of school after cloudbursts - a rare weather phenomenon in which more than 100mm of rain falls within an hour in a highly concentrated area - triggered massive downpours and flash floods, killing at least 479 people. At least 674 schools have been destroyed or damaged , with many classrooms unusable after torrents of mud and debris swept through villages [1].
Speaking from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Rabia Rauf, Programme Operations Manager, Save the Children in Pakistan, said:
“I’ve seen places where half the village is buried under huge boulders and where people are still buried under the rubble. A community leader told me that 200 lives were lost in a single village as unstoppable torrents of water, rocks and debris tore down the mountains without notice.
Houses are filled with silt and sludge – the flash floods destroyed everything children and their families owned in seconds, including learning materials and books. The waters came and went fast, but the devastation remains.
Children are traumatised and they need to feel safe. Our temporary learning centres and child friendly spaces will not only provide places to learn but also give children and their families essential psychological support.”
Save the Children is providing temporary learning spaces for children who cannot return to their devastated classrooms in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to ensure they do not miss out on education. The humanitarian and child-rights organisation is also delivering life-saving aid, including household and hygiene kits, and running mobile health and nutrition clinics.
Three times as many people have died in torrential monsoon rains in Pakistan, Save the Children said, compared to the same period last year. The death toll has crossed 800, including more than 200 children, since the rains started at the end of June.
Research from Save the Children found that for children born in 2020, if global temperature rise is limited to 1.5°C, about 5 million would be spared from unprecedented lifetime exposure to river floods. Despite having contributed the least to the climate crisis, children are bearing the brunt of its impacts – particularly children most impacted by inequality and discrimination and in low and middle-income countries, like Pakistan [3].
Khuram Gondal, Country Director, Save the Children in Pakistan said:
“Yet again children’s lives and education are being uprooted by torrential rains and floods. Again they are losing everything to the monster rains – homes, clothes, food, clean water. Again children’s classrooms are filled with mud or schools are shuttered.
In the aftermath of the unprecedented floods in 2022, children lost more than half of a typical year of school due to the impacts of the climate crisis. We must act now to ensure that children do not miss vital learning. Education in emergency situations, like in these floods that are causing so much devastation in Pakistan, saves lives.”
Save the Children has been working in Pakistan since 1979 and was the first international NGO to respond to the 2022 floods emergency, reaching more than 1.1 million people in flood-affected areas, including about 600,000 children. Save the Children co-leads the Education in Emergencies (EiE) Working Group in Pakistan.
References
[1] https://www.ndma.gov.pk/sitrepm 203 children have lost their lives in monsoon rain- related incidents 26 June – 28 August 2025.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/08/1165730
[2] Calculation of about 25 million made using data from Pakistan census, 2023. https://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/population/2023/material/punjab_insight.pdf. According to the census, there are nearly 35.6 million school aged children (aged 5-16) in Punjab province, about 70% of whom are affected by the current school closures.
[2] https://reliefweb.int/report/pakistan/pakistan-monsoon-floods-2025-flash-update-3-26-august-2025
For media enquiries
Rachel Thompson, Asia Pacific Media Manager
rachel.thompson@savethechildren.org
