The March inflation number eclipsed February’s 31.5 percent, the bureau said, as food, beverage and transport prices surged up to 50 percent year-on-year.

Thousands of people have gathered at flour distribution centers set up across the country, some as part of a government-backed program to ease the impact of inflation.

At least 16 people, including five women and three children, had been killed in stampedes at such centers in recent days, police and officials have said.

Thousands of bags of flour have also been looted from trucks and distribution points, according to official records.

A spokesman at the statistics bureau said the inflation number was the highest ever year-on-year increase it had recorded since monthly records began in the 1970s.

“This is the highest ever inflation recorded in the data we have,” he said, as quoted by Reuters.

The consumer price index was up 3.72 percent in March from the previous month, the bureau said. Higher prices of food, cooking oil and electricity had pushed up the index, it said.

Annual food inflation in March was at 47.1 percent and 50.2 percent for urban and rural areas respectively, the bureau said. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, stood at 18.6 percent in urban areas and 23.1 percent in rural areas.

The South Asian nation has been in economic turmoil for months with an acute balance of payments crisis, while talks with the IMF to secure $1.1 billion funding as part of $6.5 billion bailout agreed in 2019 have not yet yielded fruit.

Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen to cover barely four weeks of imports.

A monthly economic outlook report issued by the finance ministry on Friday projected inflation would remain elevated.

The report cited market frictions caused by relative demand and supply gaps of essential items, exchange rate depreciation and the recent upward adjustment in fuel prices as reasons behind higher inflation expectations.

Donation stampede

Pakistan has been wracked by economic turmoil for months, the rupee crumbling and staple food prices shooting up nearly 50 percent as the country battles a balance of payments crisis that has forced it into bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Fida Janwari, a senior police officer in western Karachi’s Baldia Town neighborhood, said the stampede happened when needy women with children flocked to a factory distributing alms.

“Panic struck and people started running,” he told AFP.

A local administration official said 600 to 700 people were corralled in a small industrial compound.

“When they opened the main gate, all the people rushed in,” added 22-year-old Fatima Noor, whose sister died in the crush.

The bodies of six women and three children were brought to the Abbasi Shaheed state hospital, spokesman Muhammad Farraukh said.

An official for the Rescue NGO told AFP an additional two bodies were sent to another hospital, and police surgeon Summaiya Syed Tariq confirmed the total toll of 11 late on Friday.

Asma Ahmed, 30, said her grandmother and niece were among the dead.

“We come every year to the factory for the zakat,” she said, using the Islamic term for alms.

“They started beating the women with clubs and pushing them,” Ahmed added. “There was chaos everywhere.

“Why did they call us if they couldn’t manage it?” she asked.

Janwari said three factory employees were arrested after failing to inform police of the donation event in order to organize crowd control.

Last week on the first day of Ramadan, when Muslims traditionally make donations to the poor, one person was killed and eight others injured in a stampede for flour in northwestern Pakistan.