Pakistan's 2025 monsoon has been the deadliest since the floods of 2022. In its update of 21 September, the National Disaster Management Authority reported that rains and floods had claimed 1,006 lives across the country since 26 June, and that more than 3.02 million people had been rescued or evacuated in relief operations, according to Pakistan Today's account of the update.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded the highest death toll, with 504 fatalities, many of them in sudden flash floods in mountain districts such as Buner in mid-August. Punjab reported 304 deaths, Sindh 80, Gilgit-Baltistan 41, Azad Jammu and Kashmir 38, Balochistan 30 and Islamabad Capital Territory nine. A further 1,063 people were injured.
Two kinds of flood
The 2025 season brought two distinct types of flooding. In the north, cloudbursts and intense rainfall over steep catchments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir produced flash floods that swept away homes, roads and bridges within hours. These events caused most of the deaths.
In Punjab, the main hazard was riverine flooding. Heavy rains in the upper catchments of the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab, which rise in India, produced high flows that crossed into Pakistan in late August and September. Punjab carried out the largest evacuation in its history, with 2.81 million people moved through 4,749 rescue operations, according to the NDMA figures. Sindh evacuated more than 184,000 people as flood waters moved downstream.
Damage to infrastructure
The NDMA reported 12,569 homes damaged, of which 4,128 were destroyed and 8,441 partly damaged, and 6,509 livestock lost. At least 239 bridges and 1,981 kilometres of roads were damaged or destroyed. The most severe damage to transport infrastructure was in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, which lost 94 bridges and 201 kilometres of roads, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with 52 bridges and 437 kilometres of roads, and Gilgit-Baltistan, with 87 bridges.
Power infrastructure was also hit, with distribution networks in flood-affected districts restoring supply in stages as waters receded. Relief packages distributed by the NDMA included solar panels, generators and de-watering pumps, reflecting the loss of grid supply in many affected areas.
Dams and reservoir operations
Pakistan's two largest reservoirs, Tarbela on the Indus and Mangla on the Jhelum, play a dual role during the monsoon. They store water for irrigation and hydropower in the dry season, and they can absorb part of a flood peak if they have spare capacity. Reservoir operators must balance filling the dams for later use against keeping space to manage floods.
In 2025, high inflows required careful management of releases. Hydropower generation typically peaks in the monsoon months, when inflows are high, and the hydropower contribution to the national grid is largest between July and September. Silt carried by floods, however, can damage turbines and reduce reservoir capacity over time, a long-running problem at Tarbela.
The 2022 comparison
The 2025 floods are smaller in scale than the 2022 disaster, when floods covered large parts of Sindh and Balochistan for months. A post-disaster needs assessment led by the government with the World Bank and other partners estimated 2022 damages at $14.9 billion and losses at $15.2 billion, with reconstruction needs of at least $16.3 billion. Recovery from those floods, including in the power sector, was still incomplete when the 2025 season began.
The repeated disasters have kept climate resilience at the centre of Pakistan's economic policy. In May 2025 the IMF approved a Resilience and Sustainability Facility arrangement worth about $1.4 billion, alongside the existing Extended Fund Facility, with reforms focused on disaster resilience in public investment, water pricing and coordination of disaster financing between the federal and provincial governments.
Fiscal and energy implications
The floods will put pressure on Pakistan's budget for fiscal year 2026, through relief spending, reconstruction and lost revenue. Agriculture, particularly in Punjab, has suffered crop losses that could affect exports and food prices. The government will need to balance these costs against the fiscal targets of the IMF programme.
For the energy sector, the immediate costs fall on distribution companies, which must repair damaged networks while already facing high losses and payment arrears. Circular debt, the accumulated arrears in the power sector, remains a central issue in IMF discussions. Flood damage adds to the investment needs of distribution companies, which have limited capacity to finance repairs.
The floods also affect energy demand. Displacement and damage reduce electricity consumption in affected areas in the short term. Over the longer term, reconstruction could be an opportunity to rebuild networks to higher standards, including raised substations and stronger poles, though financing remains the constraint.
Solar and resilience
The surge in rooftop solar installations in Pakistan over the past two years has changed how households and businesses experience grid outages. Solar panels with batteries can provide power when the grid is down, which matters during floods and heatwaves. At the same time, damage to rooftop systems during floods and the loss of grid connection for net-metered customers create new challenges for distribution companies managing restoration.
Loss and damage finance
Pakistan has been a prominent advocate in international negotiations on loss and damage, which led to the creation of a dedicated fund at COP27 in 2022, under Pakistan's chairmanship of the G77 negotiating group. The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage has been establishing its operating procedures. Pakistan is expected to press at COP30 in Belém for faster disbursement and for funding at a scale that reflects the losses developing countries are experiencing.
Early warning and preparedness
The scale of evacuation in Punjab points to improvements in early warning and preparedness since 2022. Flood forecasts on the eastern rivers gave authorities days of notice before peak flows arrived, which allowed large-scale evacuations. Flash floods in the mountains are much harder to forecast, because intense rainfall over small catchments can turn into a destructive flood within an hour, which is one reason most deaths occurred in the north.
What to watch
Key developments include the government's damage and needs assessment for the 2025 floods, the IMF's next programme review and its treatment of flood-related spending, and the restoration of power supply in the worst-affected districts. The rabi crop sowing season in the autumn will show how quickly agricultural areas in Punjab recover.