Landslides triggered by the worst floods in Pakistan in 80 years are hampering already troubled relief efforts, with aid workers using donkeys or traveling on foot to reach millions in desperate need of help.
Poor weather has made it difficult for helicopters to deliver food to some parts of the Swat Valley, northwest of the capital Islamabad and among the areas first hit by the deluge.
Many roads have been destroyed and landslides have added to the isolation of many areas.
PHOTO: AFP
The catastrophe, which has put unpopular Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on the defensive and raised the profile of the military, which is spearheading relief efforts, has killed more than 1,600 people and left 2 million homeless.
“It’s hard to get supplies there. I would like to emphasize we are moving by foot or donkey. We are making all kinds of possible efforts. We are unable to get in to most places of Swat Valley,” said Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Ten days after the floods hit, Pakistanis are still stranded along a path of destruction more than 1,000km long from the northwest to southern Sindh Province.
In Punjab, army helicopters rescued people and their livestock from rooftops in Mehmood Kot village, a scene being played out in many parts of the country.
One family survived by placing planks on a huge date tree almost 7.5m above ground and staying there.
Some soldiers are getting frustrated by some Pakistanis’ reluctance to leave their homes.
“When we try to take them, they say they don’t want to leave and instead they demand food. We have to fly again to bring food. This is a major problem for us,” Lieutenant Colonel Salman Rafiq told reporters.
US officials, while declining to discuss this publicly, are also concerned about the damage caused by the weak government response floods and mounting hostility toward Zardari.
Pakistan is a key US ally whose help Washington needs to end a nine-year insurgency by Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
Charities with links to militants have taken advantage of the vacuum left by the government and delivered aid to thousands stranded by the floods, possibly boosting their own standing among Pakistanis as Taliban militants press on with their war.
US concerns are also growing over the disaster’s impact on Pakistan’s fragile economy and how Washington’s robust development plan may be slowed down to deal with the crisis.
Pakistan’s troubled economy will need huge injections of foreign aid. Hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian relief will be needed over the next few months alone.
Pakistan turned to the IMF in 2008 to avert a balance of payments crisis and has been struggling to meet the conditions of that US$10.66 billion emergency loan.
Pakistani stocks fell more than 2.6 percent in early trade as investors became cautious on realization of the extent of the flood damage, dealers said.
TSUNAMI-LIKE
The sheer number of people affected by the floods make the scale of the disaster worse than the devastating 2004 tsunami, Giuliano said yesterday.
“So far 13.8 million people have been affected by recent floods in Pakistan,” he said. “This disaster is worse than the tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the Haiti earthquake.”
“It is bigger because in the 2005 Pakistan earthquake more than 3 million were affected, while in the tsunami some 5 million people were affected and the Haiti earthquake affected some 3 million,” he said.
However, about 220,000 people perished in the 2004 tsunami across Asia, while the UN has estimated the death toll from the Pakistan floods at 1,600.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese