The Quilter Foundation is supporting the DEC Pakistan Floods Appeal.

Devastating floods have hit Pakistan, submerging vast areas of land and leaving 6 million people in need of urgent help.

According to the government of Pakistan, a third of the country - equivalent to an area the size of the UK - is underwater, in what the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called a "climate catastrophe". Whole villages have been cut off, with rescuers struggling to reach them. At least 1,100 people have been killed and 1,500 injured.

Aid agencies are scrambling to respond to meet peoples basic needs such as food, clean water and shelter, and the government of Pakistan has called for international assistance to provide humanitarian aid.

Huge areas of agricultural land have been affected, with crops swept away and three quarters of a million livestock killed, which will mean many people going hungry in the longer term. There is also a high risk from water-borne diseases spreading in affected areas.

DEC charities are providing life-saving aid either directly or through local partners. But they urgently need more funds to reach more people. The UK Government will match pound-for-pound up to £5 million donated by the public to this appeal.