Cost of Pakistan's devastating floods: $9.7 bn

The devastating floods in Pakistan since July have caused an estimated 9.7 billion dollar damage to infrastructure, farms, homes, as well as other direct and indirect losses, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB) have said.

The estimate was presented in the Damage and Needs Assessment (DNA), a survey conducted nationwide by ADB and the World Bank to assess the extent of the flood damage.

The survey was submitted to Pakistan government and was made public at Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP) meeting in Brussels on Friday.

"$9.7 billion is almost double the amount of damage caused by the 2005 Pakistan earthquake," said Rune Stroem, ADB Country Director for Pakistan.

Rachid Benmessaoud, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan said that now the DNA has been completed "our job as friends of Pakistan is to help the country respond to this enormous reconstruction challenge."

In carrying out the assessment, ADB and World Bank teams examined the extent of the damage in 15 key sectors across Pakistan, also the direct damage, indirect losses and reconstruction costs.

The DNA found that the agriculture and livestock sectors have been the worst hit, followed by complete or partial damage to a large number of houses.