KARACHI - Although ongoing monsoon season has brought intense rains in different parts of Pakistan, yet there is no threat of floods in the country, said Climate Change Ministry on Tuesday. According to official statement issued here, Federal Minister for Climate Change Ministry Rana Farooq Saeed said that the monsoon spell, which brought heavy rains in different parts of the country, was now gradually phasing out and there was no possibility of any flood in the country. He appreciated officials of the Pakistan Meteorological Department for forecasting about the recent spell of rains and issuing directions for taking measures to mitigate possible resultant losses in all provincial government department concerned on time.He said these timely rain forecasts and warnings/ directions helped the provincial governments to prepare for the recent rain spell and mitigate loss of the life and socio-economic damages at any level, which otherwise would have been of enormous proportions.The official statement said that although half of Dera Ismail Khan is under water, but ruled out any danger to the sensitive nuclear installations in the area from heavy rains that ignited hill torrents. He expressed satisfaction over preparedness of the NDMA, PDMA and DDMAs, saying these disaster management bodies are functioning well and taking care of the post-rain situations developing in the affected districts of the country.Whiling taking stock of the loss of the life and damages in the wake of the recent rains, National Disaster Management Authority Chairman Zafar Iqbal Qadir said that 89 deaths have been reported till September 11 and as many as 68 people were injured in the rain-related incidents in the entire country. He denied media reports about the rain-related fatalities being reported in the media and termed it exaggerated.Talking about house collapses/damages following the rains, the statement quoted the NDMA chairman, saying that according to the initial reports as many as 8,575 houses damaged in recent rains till Tuesday morning by PDMAs and DDMAs in different parts of the county, most of them in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.Giving break-up of the figures about damaged houses, Zafar Iqbal Qadir said,” As many as 33 houses have been damaged in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; 31 in Azad Jammu-Kashmir; 11 in Balochistan; seven in Punjab and three in Sindh. He termed death toll in rain-related incidents in Sindh province being reported in the media as exaggerated. He said that breaches in rain-hit districts of Sindh, Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have caused flooding of agricultural land and urban areas. But, army has been called in with heavy machineries, which plugged several breaches in Sindh and Dera Ismail Khan and work is underway to plugged the remaining breaches.While quoting the NDMA, the statement said the rainwater, which has flooded different urban areas in affected districts of the country will retreat in few days. Climate Change Ministry Secretary Mahmood Alam said that it has been very difficult to accurately predict weather as it has growing become unpredictable and erratic. He said that Pakistan accounts for a little over 0.5 percent of the total global carbon emissions, but it is among top 10 countries highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. The federal secretary told the media that given the deepening impacts of the global warming on Pakistan, extreme weather events such as heavy rains, droughts and floods are becoming increasingly frequent.Sea-level rise, he maintained, is another threat that is eating away fertile land in coastal areas of Pakistan and damaging under ground sweet water resources. “Pakistan is fully aware of the changing harsh weather patterns and their impact on Pakistan. To tackle these extreme weather events, a national climate change policy has been already hammered out, which is pending for cabinet’s approval.”“I hope the ‘roadmap’ climate change policy, which focuses on mitigation and adaptation, will be approved soon by the cabinet.” Earlier, the Pakistan Meteorological Department Director General Arif Mahmood, briefed the media about the recent rains and future situation of the monsoon spell.He said that these rains have been intense in northern parts of Sindh, central Punjab, and eastern Balochistan.“While the outgoing monsoon season’s recent rain spell is phasing out, the heavy rains are expected scattered parts of northern Punjab and north-west Balochistan for four to five days. Later, the rain spell will weaken in following four to five days.”