Perched on her neighbour’s rooftop, Ghulam Bano gazes down at the remains of her home, submerged in murky, foul-smelling floodwater that has engulfed much of Pakistan’s Punjab region.

Monsoon rains this week swelled three transboundary rivers that cut through Pakistan’s eastern province, the nation’s agricultural heartland and home to nearly half of its 255 million people.

Bano moved to Shahdara town last year, on the outskirts of Lahore, to avoid the choking smog pollution of Pakistan’s second-largest city, only to have her new beginning overturned by raging floods.

“My husband had started coughing blood and his condition just kept getting worse when the smog hit,” Bano told AFP, walking through muddy streets.

Pakistan regularly ranks among the world’s most polluted countries, with La

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