Pakistani navy boats traveled along kilometers of flood waters yesterday to rescue people stranded in a disaster that has angered many over the government’s response.
The worst floods in 80 years have killed more than 1,600 people, disrupted 12 million lives, washed away crops and farm animals and overwhelmed Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s government.
The military, which has maintained a dominant role in foreign and security policy even during civilian rule, is leading the relief efforts, as it has done in past crises.
PHOTO: REUTERS/US ARMY
Analysts do not expect the government’s poor handling of the crisis to encourage the military, which has ruled the country for more than half of its history, to try to seize power.
More homes and crops are likely to be swept away with heavy rain forecast to lash the country in the next 24 to 36 hours.
Rubber and wooden navy boats set out from areas in Sindh Province, where flood waters burst from the Indus River across vast distances, to help Pakistanis who have watched safe ground shrink by the hour and waters swallow up their livestock.
“We have been doing this for several days,” said navy officer Akhter Mahmood after his boat traveled through about 20km of flood water.
Zardari drew heavy criticism for leaving the country for official visits in Europe during the crisis. He has said the prime minister is handling the crisis and reporting developments to him.
Even though relief efforts may have improved the military’s standing and widened the perception that Pakistani civilian governments are too weak and inefficient to cope with disasters, analysts don’t see any threat to the current administration.
Foreign aid organizations, also playing a much bigger role than the government, say weather has hampered relief efforts and the floods have wiped out some of their supplies.
Floodwaters have roared down from as far away as Afghanistan and India through the northwest to the agricultural heartland of Punjab and on to southern Sindh along a trail more than 1,000km long.
In some areas only the tops of trees and telephone poles are visible. Pakistanis are stuck on the rooftops of their homes. Some, fighting to hold on to anything they can, walk waist-deep in water carrying logs from their shattered homes.
“This is unprecedented ... it’s beyond imagination, it’s beyond expectations” Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said on a visit to Sukkur, Sindh Province. “Our country has gone back several years.”
Gilani made another appeal for international aid, saying the disaster had spiraled beyond the government’s capacity.
“Millions of people have suffered and still there is more rain and further losses are feared. I appeal to the world to help us, we are doing what we can,” Gilani told reporters, as he urged those threatened by the floods to move to safer spots.
“The government has done everything possible, but it is beyond our capacity, we are facing an extremely difficult situation,” he said.
Saleh Farooqui, director general of the National Disaster Management Authority in Sindh Province, said up to 10,000 people were evacuated by the military overnight in Punjab Province, and several thousand in Sindh. In Punjab, hundreds of people were evacuated from drenched areas to a railway track on higher ground.
“What we are wearing is all that we have, the rest is all gone — our house, animals, wheat we had stored, everything has been destroyed,” university student Fiza Batool said as she fed her 10-year-old sister biscuits.
Flooding has also taken a toll over the border in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, where rain was hampering rescue and relief efforts, while flash floods killed at least 132 people in the Himalayan region of Ladakh.
A cloudburst on Friday caused devastating floods that swept away roads, buildings, bridges and power cables in a tide of rock and mud in Ladakh. Rescuers fear many more victims may have died after being buried.
Thousands of residents in Leh abandoned houses hit by the mudflows and moved to higher ground where they slept in the open despite the cold.
Indian soldiers, police and paramilitary troops led the relief operation yesterday, sifting through destroyed homes and providing basic medical care to those injured.
Tourists and Buddhist monks also helped in rescue work, which was hampered by a lack of heavy-lifting equipment and the mountain terrain. Leh, situated in an arid desert at an altitude of 3,505m receives virtually no rainfall all year and has no planned drainage system.
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