For days, farmers in Punjab, India, anxiously watched the relentless monsoon rains and swelling rivers. By Wednesday, their fears became reality as the worst floods in over three decades devastated their farms and livelihoods.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of green rice paddies, poised for harvest, along with cotton and sugar cane crops, were submerged under more than five feet of murky floodwaters. Dead cattle bodies littered the ground. Parmpreet Singh, from Ajnala in Amritsar district, said, “Our crops are ruined, and our homes are in danger of collapsing.” His family now resided on their roof to escape the floodwaters.
This disaster threatens Parmpreet’s entire livelihood dependent on his seven hectares of flooded farmland. He’s left with the possibility of selling his land and abandoning farming. He had invested his money into seeds and fertilizers for the previous crop, which is now lost.
The flood crisis has not been isolated to India; in Pakistan’s Punjab, the devastation from floods has been even more severe. Nearly two million people have been evacuated, and about 4,000 villages are inundated.
Both governments face criticism for their inadequate response to the crisis. India’s decision to release water from several heavily filled dams upstream led to further flooding in Pakistan, with Pakistani officials blaming India for the disaster. The Ravi River, which runs through the border, tore down a 30km stretch of iron fencing separating India and Pakistan and forced India’s border security force soldiers to abandon their posts.
The fury of the floods is exacerbated by rapid deforestation and development along waterways, increasing the likelihood of severe flooding. Affluent housing developments like Park View Society, newly constructed just meters from the Ravi’s banks in Lahore, were also affected, with multimillion-rupee homes filled with floodwaters.
While catastrophic for farmers and residents, this disaster underscores the vulnerability of agriculture in the face of extreme weather events and the climate crisis, highlighting the urgent need for better flood management and infrastructure.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/06/everything-gone-punjabi-farmers-suffer-worst-floods-three-decades
