The UN is launching an appeal to help 13.8 million people hit by one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters after floods paralyzed parts of Pakistan and raised fears of disease.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the disaster had eclipsed the scale of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and January’s earthquake in Haiti put together.
About 1.5 million people have been evacuated in the south and 1.5 million hectares of valuable farmland destroyed in central Punjab Province while the worst hit has been the northwest, already struggling with Taliban violence.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“We will soon issue an … appeal for several hundred million dollars to respond to immediate needs,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
The Pakistani government and UN officials have appealed for more urgent relief efforts to cope with the catastrophe, saying that billions of dollars will be needed to restore livelihoods and rebuild infrastructure.
Parts of the Swat Valley were still cut off yesterday by road as were parts of the country’s breadbasket in Punjab and Sindh.
“This is a major disaster of enormous magnitude,” UN emergency relief coordinator John Holmes said. “Needs are huge and still rising. The humanitarian effort needs to be scaled up accordingly, as fast as we can.”
Weather cleared yesterday, allowing 23 Pakistani, six US military and four Afghan helicopters to help distribute relief items and rescue people stranded in the northwest, one military official said.
The world body estimates 1,600 people have died in Pakistan’s floods and the Pakistani government has confirmed 1,243 deaths.
In the south, there are warnings in towns and cities for people to remain on alert, but water levels were beginning to drop at the Guddu barrage and the meteorological office has forecast scattered rain in the next 24 hours.
Ban also stressed the need to consider medium- and long-term assistance to Pakistan, warning that this “will be a major and protracted task.”
Food prices are skyrocketing, compounding the misery as the floods ravage the country’s most fertile lands and wipe out crops.
The UN said donors have already provided US$38.2 million while a further US$90.9 million has been promised, but on the ground Islamic charities with suspected extremist links have been far more visible in the relief effort.
Meanwhile, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari returned to Pakistan yesterday, where he faced a storm of criticism for visiting Europe as his country was gripped by its worst natural disaster.
The timing of the trip struck a raw nerve among many who said he should have stayed with his suffering people — even though Zardari, fearful of assassination, rarely makes public appearances in Pakistan anyway. The criticism was particularly harsh after reports that he’d visited his family’s chateau in France.
Zardari returned to Karachi and was expected back in Islamabad today. He was set to meet with the chief ministers of the provinces to map out a rehabilitation program, said a spokeswoman for the ruling Pakistan People’s Party said.
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