Pakistan floods: supercharged jet stream 'causing flooding'

A highly-charged jet stream is contributing to the worse floods Pakistan has seen in decades, meteorologists have said

The jet stream, a massive ring of high speed winds, is moving quicker than usual over north western Pakistan, causing wet monsoon air to be sucked faster and higher into the atmosphere.

The stream, which is normally too high to affect every day weather but does influence large scale weather patterns by shifting the atmosphere around, is "supercharging" the monsoon, leading to some of the heaviest rainfall in memory.

Scientists say the hyperactive jet stream is also causing deadly landslides in China and the drought in Russia, which is leading to wildfires.

The stream has split in two with one section heading north over Russia and the other going south over the Himalayas into Pakistan. In Russia the stream is inhaling some of the country's hottest temperatures on record and spreading them quickly, causing the fires.

Experts say it is very unusual for the stream to head that far south.


Although the current 1,600 death toll in Pakistan represents a tiny fraction of the estimated 610,000 people killed in the three previous events, some two million more people – 13.8 million – have suffered losses requiring long or short-term help.

Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said: "This disaster is worse than the tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the Haiti earthquake."





"There are people here who are 80 and who will tell you that they have seen nothing like it in their lives," said Arif Jabbar Khan, leading the Oxfam team in the town. "This was a productive agricultural area with a big middle class who have now lost everything. The effect of that will be enormously destabilising. There was a riot in town as people demanded food."




"The reaction in the west to this crisis has been lukewarm so far," said Mr Khan. "The governments there need to understand what is going on." Meanwhile Mr Khan must get on with the basics, pouring chlorine into wells to prevent the spread of e-coli and cholera, and organising payments to families so that they can buy food in Charsadda's still-functioning market.





