Pakistan yesterday ordered nearly half a million people to evacuate towns as rising floods threaten further havoc in a country straining to cope after its worst humanitarian disaster.
Torrential monsoon rains triggered massive floods affecting a fifth of the volatile country — an area roughly the size of England — where a US official warned that foreign aid workers are at risk from Taliban attacks.
Pakistan’s worst humanitarian catastrophe has affected more than 17 million people, while officials warn that millions are at risk from water-borne diseases and food shortages.
The National Disaster Management Authority said 1,600 people have been confirmed dead and 2,366 wounded throughout Pakistan’s four provinces, Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the northern district of Gilgit-Baltistan.
In the southern province of Sindh, where the floods have washed away huge swathes of the rich farmland, a senior administration official warned that fresh floods threaten three towns.
“We have warned people of Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Daro towns to leave for safer places in view of possible flooding there,” said Hadi Bakhsh Kalhoro, the senior official in Thatta district.
“Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Daro towns have an approximate population of 400,000,” he said.
Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo said waters were also mounting pressure on a protective embankment in the village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, where former Pakistani leaders Benazir Bhutto and her father, as well as her two younger brothers, are buried.
“We have strengthened the embankment because we don’t want mausoleums of our martyrs to be flooded,” he said.
In Kotri, a western suburb of Hyderabad, the river had swollen from its normal width of 200m to 300m to almost 3.5km, a local army spokesman said.
The UN warned that 800,000 people in desperate need of aid had been cut off by the deluge across the country and appealed for more helicopters to deliver supplies to those people reachable only by air.
Authorities were also battling to save the city of Shahdadkot from surging waters after most of its 100,000 residents had been moved to safety.
Rescuers safely evacuated 90 percent of people from the nearby flooded town of Qubo Saeed Khan. Efforts were being made, however, to rescue thousands of others stranded in at least 25 villages surrounding the town.
“We are using helicopters and naval boats to evacuate these people,” local administration official Yaseen Shar said.
In Washington, which has put Pakistan on the front line of efforts to beat back the Taliban in Afghanistan, a US official said Pakistani Taliban were planning to attack foreign aid workers engaged in the relief effort.
“According to information available to the US government, Tehreek-e-Taliban plans to conduct attacks against foreigners participating in the ongoing flood relief operations in Pakistan,” the official said.
“Tehreek-e-Taliban also may be making plans to attack federal and provincial ministers in Islamabad,” the official warned.
On the ground, the International Organization for Migration says 4.5 million people remain in urgent need of shelter.
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