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Twelve million affected by floods in Pakistan
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 06 - 08 - 2010


Pakistan said on Friday that 12 million people
have been affected by floods that have destroyed hundreds of
thousands of homes and claimed more than 1,600 lives.
Nadeem Ahmed, head of the National Disaster Management Authority,
said the the north-western province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and central
province of Punjab had suffered most, according to dpa.
Data was still being collected in the southern province of Sindh,
where authorities were moving people to safer places as the rising
Indus River threatened to submerge vast areas.
Ahmed said 650,000 houses were damaged or destroyed and the
country would need 2.5 billion dollars for relief and rehabilitation
after the worst floods in the country's history.
The deadly floods triggered by last week's unusually heavy monsoon
rains devastated much of the north-western region, inundated hundreds
of villages in central Pakistan and killed more than 1,600 people.
The raging waters have now poured into the 3,320-kilometre long
Indus River and are passing through Sindh.
"At the moment 962,678 cubic feet (27,263 cubic metres) per second
of water is passing through the Indus River in Sindh and its level is
increasing," said Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, head of the Pakistan
Meteorological Department.
Hundreds of troops and aid workers were strengthening river
embankments and people were being evacuated from low-lying areas.
"Eleven districts are at risk of flooding in Sindh, where more
than 500,000 people have been relocated to safer places and
evacuation still continues," said a statement from the United
Nation's humanitarian affairs body, UNOCHA.
The authorities set up relief camps in several official buildings
but tens of thousands of people were staying in the open with their
belongings, along roads or in fields, because of the lack of
government-provided shelters.
In Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtukhwa, hundreds of thousands of people
were still marooned by the floods, many of them forced to take
shelter on rooftops and ridges.
Flooding submerged Jampur, a city of 200,000in the southern part
of Punjab, forcing people to abandon the town abruptly, leaving
behind their possessions. Hundreds more were stranded on rooftops.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has come under heavy
criticism for visiting Europe while the country is reeling under the
floods. This comes as his popularity nose-dived to 20 per cent,
according to one poll.
His government is also facing the fury of the flood victims
because of the slow pace of rescue and relief activities.
"There is no official, no government that has come for our rescue.
Our houses, our belongings, our children have drowned in the flood
and our president has no concern for us. We can only curse him and we
are cursing him," said Allah Bux, a Jampur resident.
Many flooded areas remain inaccessible to relief workers and a new
spell of rain that started on Friday in northern and north-western
areas had hampered aid operations.
"This monsoon is quite intense. It will continue till August 15,"
said Arif Mehmood, chief meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological
Department.
"The current spell will continue till Sunday and it can halt
flight operations in the flood-affected areas and will create further
difficulties in the areas where thousands of people have lost
shelter," said Mehmood.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that cases of acute
diarrhoea were a source of concern.
"There are random cases of acute diarrhoea in four of the most
affected districts. But there is no outbreak of diarrhoea reported so
far," said Haider Ali, a WHO official in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
"But we are concerned. Dead animals are still in the water and the
stink is spreading everywhere," he added.


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