Pakistan Braces for More Flooding
VOA News 25 August 2010
Authorities are working to protect Pakistan's southern region from rising water as the United Nations warned 800,000 people remain stranded by devastating floods.
The Indus River is expected to reach very high levels this week near the city of Hyderabad in Sindh province. Emergency workers have been shoring up levees and evacuating tens of thousands of people.
Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority estimates more than 460,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed in Sindh province, more than twice the number reported last week, according to International Organization for Migration spokesman Jared Bloch.
"But, these estimates from NDMA put the total number of households damaged or destroyed at nearly 1.2 million across the country. This would mean that approximately eight-million people are either homeless or displaced and could be in need of shelter support from the government or international donors." Block said.
Meanwhile, the World Food Program is appealing for 40 more helicopters to provide aid to flood victims who it says are only reachable by air. And the agency says the need for food is rising faster that can be met. So far, the WFP has reached an estimated one-and-three-quarters-million people, said spokeswoman, Emilia Casella.
"The official target for food assistance at the moment is six million people over the coming three months. Now, we all recognize that the numbers have been rising," she said. "We are already expecting that the number of people needing food assistance will rise."
The agency said it believes nearly a million people face starvation and disease without access to vital supplies. Many of the affected live in the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where roads and bridges have been wiped out by floodwaters.
Nearly a month of monsoon rain triggered flooding that has killed an estimated 1,600 people and wiped out villages, infrastructure and farmland, leaving almost five million people homeless.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said any slackness in the global response to the floods may give extremists an opportunity to promote what he described as their destructive agenda.
He was speaking in Islamabad Tuesday in a meeting with the visiting U.S. Commander of the U.S. Central Command, General James Mattis.
The Pakistani prime minister also warned that 3.5 million children are at risk of contracting waterborne diseases.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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