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Pakistan – August 23, 2010. More than 15 million people are affected by Pakistan’s worst flooding in 80 years, with at least 1,600 fatalities, according to estimates from the government of Pakistan. While the severity of their needs has not yet been fully assessed, the number is greater than those who were affected by the 2005 South Asia tsunami (5 million), the 2005 South Asia earthquake (3 million), or the 2010 Haiti earthquake (3 million). The estimate of 290,000 homes destroyed or seriously damaged is almost the same as those destroyed in Haiti.
Pakistan need your supports, join hands to save lives.
Evangelist Khuram Bashir
BBC’s Adam Mynott:Reports
‘It’s a catastrophe…and that’s no overstatement’
The worst monsoon rains in 80 years are continuing to sweep from the north-west to south and central Pakistan.
Rivers in Sindh province, home to Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city and business hub, are bursting their banks.
Pakistani authorities have evacuated 500,000 people in 11 districts of Sindh and issued warnings to people in low-lying areas of the Indus river.
Flooding has submerged whole villages in the past week, killing about 1,600 people and affecting another 4.5m.
There is mounting anger at the absence of President Asif Ali Zardari, who left the country for a state visit to Britain to meet the UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
With flood victims bitterly accusing the authorities of failing to come to their aid, the disaster has piled yet more pressure on an administration struggling to contain Taliban violence and an economic crisis.
And the region is only midway through monsoon season, with more rain forecast.
‘Unprecedented’
The situation is likely to worsen as the meteorological department has predicted heavy rains in areas already hit by the floods.
“We’re forecasting widespread rains in the country, specially in flood-affected areas,” Reuters quoted Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, director general of the department, as saying.
Authorities in Sindh have warned of major floods in the next 48 hours along the swollen Indus river.
“It is unprecedented floods in our history,” news agency AFP quoted military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas as saying. “We do not have the kind of resources to cope with a situation like this.”
Army helicopters have evacuated about 3,000 tourists stranded in the Kalam region of Swat district, which has been cut off after many bridges were washed away by flood waters.
Sixty boats have been sent from Lahore to Multan, in Punjab province, and Sukkur in Sindh province, for evacuation purposes, an army press release said.
Officials say the most immediate needs of the displaced are tents, plastic sheets, food and medicines.
The World Bank said it had set up an aid fund at Pakistan’s request with initial pledges of $80m (£50m).
Meanwhile, 90 people have died in flash floods in the Ladakh region of Indian-administered Kashmir, officials say; nearly 270 people were injured.
The inspector general of Kashmir police Farooq Ahmed told the BBC that the dead included four policemen who had joined the rescue operation.
