Islamabad

As Pakistan continues to battle the country's worst monsoon floods, the Federal Minister of Planning and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Monday warned that the country will be confronted with acute food shortages in the near term.

As a consequence of the current countrywide destruction done by the floods, the minister said that it might take five years to rebuild and rehabilitate the nation.

Iqbal said that the people have lost their complete livelihoods in this disaster and rated the recent floods worse than those that hit Pakistan in 2010, for which United Nations (UN) had issued its largest ever disaster appeal.

Unprecedented flash floods caused by historic monsoon rains have washed away roads, crops, infrastructure, and bridges, affecting tens of thousands of livelihoods in the country.

Pakistan has appealed for international help and some countries have already sent in supplies and rescue teams.

However, Iqbal said any formal requests for financial help would need to wait until the scale of the damage was known, something Pakistan was now evaluating with partners, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The country's Finance Minister Miftah Ismail also had said the flash floods have inflicted a loss of at least USD 10 billion on different sectors of its economy.

According to the National Disaster Management Authority, atleast 1,033 people have died while 1,527 have been injured since June 14 from the rains and floods.

Cumulative data from June 14 from across Pakistan showed that 3,451 km of road has been damaged, 149 bridges have collapsed, and 170 shops were destroyed.

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Around 2 million acres of crops and orchards have also been impacted.