'Monsoon on steroids' has flooded vast swaths of Pakistan, disturbing satellite images show

two satellite images show a region with a lake to the west and a river running at an angle to the east. The left photo shows the region prior to extreme flooding, whereas the right photo shows the lake and river overflowing into one another and the surrounding area — The false-color images above were acquired by the Operational Land Imagers aboard the Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 satellites on Aug. 4 and 28, respectively. The images combine shortwave infrared, near infrared, and red light (bands 6-5-4) to better distinguish flood waters (deep blue) beyond their natural channels.

(Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).)

New satellite images show the extent of the catastrophic floods now inundating Pakistan, leaving approximately one-third of the country underwater. The worst of the floods occurred along a stretch of the Indus River that overflowed, forming a massive lake.

The flooding, driven by unusually heavy monsoon rains, has affected more than 33 million people in Pakistan and killed more than 1,100 since mid-June, including hundreds of children, NPR reported. Millions of acres of cropland, thousands of miles of roads and more than a million homes have been damaged by the floodwaters. In a video posted to Twitter, Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and the country's top climate official, called the historic floods "serious climate catastrophe, one of the hardest in the decade."

Satellite images, shared by the NASA Earth Observatory on Aug. 28, revealed how the floodwaters transformed the country's landscape between early and late August. For example, on Aug. 4, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) of land stood between the Indus River and Hamal Lake, located west of the river in the Qambar Shahdadkot District of Pakistan. But by Aug. 28, the two bodies of water had merged with one another.

The European Space Agency shared similar images of the flooding on Aug. 30, with submerged land marked in blue and black. These images, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite, highlighted the region between the cities of Dera Murad Jamali and Larkana, which respectively lie northeast and due east of Hamal Lake. Again, the snapshots show where the once-winding Indus River has now been replaced by a vast lake.

satellite image shows region of pakistan between the indus river and hamal lake, where flooded areas are marked in dark blue and black — The left side of this Copernicus Sentinel-1 image shows a wide view of the area affected and the image on the right zooms into the area between Dera Murad Jamali and Larkana. The Indus River has overflowed, effectively creating a long lake. The blue to black colours show where the land is submerged.

Experimental data and climate models suggest that, as average global temperatures rise, historically wet regions will face more extreme precipitation events, like monsoons, while historically dry regions will grow drier as the rising heat drives water to evaporate more efficiently, Live Science previously reported. So climate change essentially intensifies the water cycle, leading to more extreme and more frequent weather events.

In addition to devastating monsoons, Pakistan had been contending with glacial-outburst floods, or the sudden release of water from glacial lakes, according to NASA Earth Observatory. Pakistan, with its roughly 7,000 glaciers, contains the most glacial ice of any country beyond the polar regions. Particularly in northern regions of the country, the meltwater from these glaciers sometimes compounds the damage caused by rainwater.

Nicoletta Lanese is the health channel editor at Live Science and was previously a news editor and staff writer at the site. She is a recipient of the 2026 AHCJ International Health Study Fellowship, with a project focused on antibiotic stewardship practices in Japan and the U.S. They hold a graduate certificate in science communication from UC Santa Cruz and degrees in neuroscience and dance from the University of Florida. Beyond Live Science, Lanese's work has appeared in The Scientist, Science News, the Mercury News, Mongabay and Stanford Medicine Magazine, among other outlets. Based in NYC, she also remains involved in dance and performs in local choreographers' work.