The Pakistan Government Has Declared a National Emergency
Islamabad: The Pakistani government has declared a national emergency to eliminate the swarms of locust attacks that destroy large-scale crops in Punjab after wiping them out in Sindh, media reported on Saturday.
The decision was made at a meeting Friday convened by Prime Minister Imran Khan, reports Dawn news.
The meeting attended by federal ministers and senior officials from the four provinces also approved a National Action Plan (NAP) which requires 7.3 billion Pakistani rupees to overcome the crisis.
Imran Khan instructed the authorities concerned to urgently take all necessary measures to contain the locust epidemic in the country and to avoid the loss of crops.
The locust attack was first spotted in the country in March 2019 and swarms then spread over 900,000 hectares in Sindh, South Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, damaging growing crops and millions of trees rupees, reports The Express Tribune.