Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province is dealing with the biggest flood in its history, a senior official said Sunday, as water levels of rivers rise to all-time highs.

Global warming has worsened monsoon rains this year in Pakistan, one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, according to a new study. Downpours and cloudbursts have triggered flash floods and landslides across the mountainous north and northwest in recent months.

Residents in eastern Punjab have also experienced abnormal amounts of rain, as well as cross-border flooding after India released water from swollen rivers and its overflowing dams into Pakistan’s low-lying regions.

“This is the biggest flood in the history of the Punjab. The flood has affected 2 million people. It’s the first time that the three rivers — Sutlej, Chenab, and Ravi — have carried such high levels of water,” the senior minister for the province, Maryam Aurangzeb, told a press conference on Sunday.

Local authorities were evacuating people and using educational institutions, police and security facilities as rescue camps, she said. Pakistani TV channels showed people clambering into rescue boats and sailing across fully submerged farmland to safety. Others loaded belongings into boats, salvaging what remained from damaged homes, now abandoned.

“The Foreign Ministry is collecting data regarding India’s deliberate release of water into Pakistan,” Aurangzeb said. There was no immediate comment from India.

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India had alerted Pakistan to the possibility of cross-border flooding last week, the first public diplomatic contact between the rivals since a crisis brought them close to war in May.

Punjab, home to some 150 million people, is a vital part of the country’s agricultural sector and is Pakistan’s main wheat producer. Ferocious flooding in 2022 wiped out huge swathes of crops in the east and south of the country, leading Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to warn that the country faced food shortages.

Figures from Pakistan’s national weather center show that Punjab received 26.5% more monsoon rain between July 1 and Aug. 27, compared to the same period last year.

‘We cannot fight the water or stop it’

In Multan, authorities installed explosives at five key embankments to divert water away from the city, if needed, ahead of a massive wave on its way from the Chenab River.

Multan Commissioner Amir Kareem Khan said drones were used to monitor low-lying areas while teams tried to persuade residents who had not yet evacuated to do so.

“The water is coming in large quantities — we cannot fight it, we cannot stop it,” Deputy Commissioner Wasim Hamad Sindhu said, appealing on people to seek shelter in government-run camps.

Resident Emaan Fatima went to a camp after water surrounded her home.

“Our animals are starving, and we are also not getting food anywhere else,” she said. “We are not sitting here by choice. Our houses are in danger. We are very worried.”

Pakistan’s disaster management authority said 849 people have been killed and 1,130 injured nationwide in rain-related incidents since June 26.

The chief minister of southern Sindh province, Murad Ali Shah, said he had instructed the Irrigation Department to get ready for a “super flood” at barrages.

“We call it a super flood when the water level exceeds 900,000 cusec (cubic foot per second),” Shah told reporters. “We hope that the water will not reach the 900,000 level, but we still have to be prepared. The most important thing for us is that we save human lives and livestock.”

Pakistan’s monsoon season usually runs to the end of September.

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A flotilla of ships departed from Barcelona to the Gaza Strip Sunday with humanitarian aid and activists on board in the largest attempt yet to break the long Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory by sea.

This comes as Israel has stepped up its offensive on Gaza City, limiting the deliveries of food and basic supplies in the north of the Palestinian territory. Food experts warned earlier this month that the city was in famine and that half a million people across the strip were facing catastrophic levels of hunger.

The Global Sumud Flotilla is carrying food, water and medicine. Activists on board demanded safe passage to deliver the much-needed aid and the opening of a humanitarian sea corridor, according to a statement. The almost 23-month conflict has killed more than 63,000 people, with at least 332 Palestinians dying of malnutrition, including 124 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The maritime convoy of about 20 boats and delegations from 44 countries is claimed to be the largest attempt to date to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip by sea, which has now lasted 18 years. They will be joined by more ships from ports in Italy and Tunisia in the coming days, on the route from the western end of the Mediterranean to the Gaza Strip, organizers said.

Thousands of supporters flocked to the Barcelona pier, some of them wearing kaffiyehs and chanting “Free Palestine!” and “Boycott Israel!” to send off a wide variety of boats, flying Palestinian flags, from rundown old luxury yachts to tiny wooden sailboats and industrial-looking vessels. One of them, the Sirus, is more than 100 years old.

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Around 70 boats are expected to take part in the final leg of the journey, flotilla spokesperson Saif Abukeshek told Spanish public television after the departure. The fleet could reach Gaza around Sept. 14 or 15, he added.

“The story here is about Palestine. The story here is how people are being deliberately deprived of the very basic means to survive,” said Swedish activist Greta Thunberg at a news conference. She is one of the most recognizable figures on the expedition, formed by hundreds of activists, politicians such as the former mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and journalists.

Ships carrying tons of humanitarian aid departed from the Italian city of Genoa and will join the expedition in the coming days.

It is not the first time Thunberg has attempted to reach Gaza waters this year. She was deported by Israel in June when the ship she was traveling on with 11 other people, the Madleen, was stopped by the Israeli military.

“It has been very clear that Israel has been continuously violating international law by either attacking, unlawfully intercepting the boats in international waters, and continuously preventing the humanitarian aid from coming in,” said Thunberg in an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday.

The Global Sumud Flotilla will be the fourth attempt to break the maritime blockade so far this year. The Conscience first tried in May, but was attacked by drones after setting sail from Malta.

After the Madleen, the Israeli military stopped another aid ship, the Handala, in late July, detained 21 international activists and reporters and seized its cargo, including baby formula, food and medicine, according to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.

In a news conference before the departure in Barcelona, actor Liam Cunningham played a video showing a girl singing while planning her own funeral. The girl, Fatima, died four days ago, he said.

“What sort of world have we slid into where children are making their own funeral arrangements?” Cunningham told reporters.

An Israeli official said Saturday that the country will soon halt or slow humanitarian aid into parts of northern Gaza, as it expands its military offensive against Hamas, a day after the city was declared a combat zone.

The conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when an attack by Hamas militants inside Israel claimed the lives of 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 people hostage.

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Pope Leo XIV on Sunday called for an end to the “pandemic of arms, large and small,” as he prayed publicly for the victims of a shooting during a Catholic school Mass in the United States.

History’s first U.S. pope spoke in English as he denounced the attack and the “logic of weapons” fueling wars around the world, during his Sunday noon blessing from his studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

“Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school Mass in the American state of Minnesota,” said the Chicago-born Leo. “We hold in our prayers the countless children killed and injured every day around the world. Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world.”

Two children were killed Wednesday and 20 people were injured during the shooting attack at the Church of Annunciation in Minneapolis, as hundreds of students from the nearby Annunciation Catholic School and others gathered for a Mass.

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The shooter fired 116 rifle rounds through the church’s stained-glass windows, and later died by suicide.

The attack once again reignited the debate over guns in America. Those who support stricter background checks on gun purchases and other laws, often Democrats, say that Republican politicians who appeal to “thoughts and prayers” after school shootings are trying to distract from their own inaction on gun restrictions.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Leo had refrained from any political commentary about guns in America, sending a telegram of condolence that focused exclusively on the spiritual.

He said he was saddened by the “terrible tragedy” and sent his “heartfelt condolences and the assurance of spiritual closeness to all those affected.”

Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, had long railed against the weapons industry and proliferation of arms fueling wars, denouncing gun manufacturers as “merchants of death.”

During his historic 2015 speech to the U.S. Congress, the Argentine pope asked the lawmakers why weapons were being sold purely to kill.

“Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood,” Francis said then. “In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.”

Leo had opened his appeal Sunday by demanding an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and a “serious commitment to dialogue” from the warring sides.

“It’s time that those responsible renounce the logic of weapons and take the path of negotiations and peace, with the support of the international community,” he said. “The voice of weapons must be silenced, while the voice of fraternity and justice must rise.”

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