Floods in Pakistan and in India

In mid-July, heavy monsoon rains caused major flooding along the Indus River in Southern Pakistan (top left) and in India?s Gujarat Province, which spreads over the two peninsulas in the bottom part of the image. In these false-color images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), standing flood waters are dark blue, vegetation is bright green, clouds are light blue, and bare ground is shades of tan and brown.
On July 20, 2003 (left), the flood waters create a bruised appearance in the vegetation along the Indus River, and cause the gulfs that intrude into the Gujarat Province to appear much deeper than normal. The image at right from May 2, 2001, shows the usual appearance of the landscape before the onset of the summer monsoon. The territory that now constitutes Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures and intertwined with the history of the broader Indian subcontinent. The ancient history involves the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, and was later home to kingdoms ruled by people of different faiths and cultures, including Hindus, Indo-Greeks, Muslims, Turco-Mongols, Afghans and Sikhs.

Credit: Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC