The 2022 Pakistan floods followed extreme monsoon rains and glacial melt, submerging large areas of the country. Millions were displaced, and homes, crops, roads, and schools were damaged. The disaster became a stark example of climate vulnerability in a country with deep riverine civilisation.

Urdu, Sindhi, Pashto, Punjabi, and English-language poets responded to flooded villages, broken fields, hunger, and the Indus as both life-source and threat. The event gives poetry readers a modern context for older South Asian river imagery under the pressure of climate change.