Satellite before and after

2022 Pakistan floods: the Indus plain in Sindh

Extreme monsoon rain from mid-June 2022 flooded tens of thousands of square kilometres of Pakistan. The worst flooding was along the Indus, and Sindh province took much of it.

Lower Indus valley, Sindh province, Pakistan · June to October 2022 · Flood · Pakistan

Compare the imagery

Drag the divider, or focus it and use the arrow keys. Left of the divider is 8 Aug 2022, right is 31 Aug 2022, 23 days apart.

The interactive comparison needs JavaScript. Both images are shown below.

In this false-colour view water is dark blue to black, vegetation is bright green, bare ground is tan, freshly burned land is red-brown and cloud is cyan.

The two images

Satellite image of Lower Indus valley, Sindh province, Pakistan on 8 Aug 2022, before the event, in false colour (MODIS bands 7-2-1).
Before: Terra, 8 Aug 2022 · Open in NASA Worldview · original from GIBS
Satellite image of Lower Indus valley, Sindh province, Pakistan on 31 Aug 2022, after the event, in false colour (MODIS bands 7-2-1).
After: Terra, 31 Aug 2022 · Open in NASA Worldview · original from GIBS

What the images show

On 8 August the Indus runs through green farmland, with some flooded ground already visible west of the river. By 31 August broad dark-blue sheets of standing water cover much of the plain, most of all west of the Indus.

About the event

  • NASA Earth Observatory, reporting in late August 2022, cited Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority: more than 33 million people affected, more than 1 million houses destroyed or damaged, and at least 1,100 people killed.
  • The worst flooding was along the Indus in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Sindh.

Limits of this comparison

The before-image is not a dry-season baseline: the rains began in mid-June, so some water is already on the ground on 8 August, and the comparison shows how far the flooding spread in the next 23 days. Both images are from the same satellite and layer. Some cloud remains in both, most of it in the north-east on 8 August. The flooding went on for weeks after 31 August.

Each image is one satellite pass at about 250 metres a pixel. It shows where water or burned land is visible from space on that day; it does not measure damage, and cloud or haze can hide what is underneath.

Dates were chosen by checking the imagery on both satellites for several days either side and keeping the clearest pass. Both use the same layer, MODIS Corrected Reflectance, bands 7-2-1.

Sources

We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Comparison slider: leaflet-side-by-side (MIT licence). Case last updated 12 Sep 2026.

Questions

What does the satellite image of Lower Indus valley, Sindh province, Pakistan show?

On 8 August the Indus runs through green farmland, with some flooded ground already visible west of the river. By 31 August broad dark-blue sheets of standing water cover much of the plain, most of all west of the Indus.

When were the two satellite images taken?

The before-image was taken by Terra, 8 Aug 2022 and the after-image by Terra, 31 Aug 2022, 23 days apart.

What can this before-and-after comparison not show?

The before-image is not a dry-season baseline: the rains began in mid-June, so some water is already on the ground on 8 August, and the comparison shows how far the flooding spread in the next 23 days. Both images are from the same satellite and layer. Some cloud remains in both, most of it in the north-east on 8 August. The flooding went on for weeks after 31 August. Each image is one satellite pass at about 250 metres a pixel. It shows where water or burned land is visible from space on that day; it does not measure damage, and cloud or haze can hide what is underneath.

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