Climate Disasters in Pakistan Leave Children and Elderly “Invisible” in Death Toll

Pakistan’s climate-vulnerable children and older adults are dying uncounted during extreme weather events, as systemic gaps in healthcare and disaster response exacerbate their invisibility in official mortality data.

The new Amnesty International study report, Uncounted: Invisible Deaths of Older People and Children During Climate Disasters in Pakistan, documents how floods and heatwaves disproportionately kill infants and seniors, yet their deaths remain excluded from government statistics, Dawn news agency revealed. Collaborating with Indus Hospital & Health Network (IHHN), Amnesty found mortality spikes during the 2022 floods—including a 71% surge in deaths at Badin hospital, mostly among under-fives and over-50s—were attributed to waterborne diseases and heat stress but went unrecorded as climate-linked fatalities.

“Pakistan’s underfunded health system collapses under climate strain, failing those most at risk,” said Amnesty researcher Laura Mills. The report highlights cases like one-year-old Kareena, who died of respiratory distress after her family endured weeks stranded on a flooded road without medical access, and elderly victims of Karachi’s 50°C heatwaves, whose deaths were dismissed as “natural causes.”

Despite being the world’s fifth-most climate-vulnerable nation, Pakistan records fewer than 5% of deaths nationally. Disaster agencies count only direct drownings or electrocutions, ignoring post-flood disease fatalities. Heatwave deaths are nearly absent from records—zero were logged in Punjab’s 2022 crisis, despite excess mortality.

Amnesty urges Pakistan to overhaul data systems and emergency protocols, while calling on high-emitting nations to fund adaptation. “Climate injustice means those least responsible suffer most,” Mills emphasized.