2010 Pakistan Floods Worst in 80 years

Death toll reaches 1600

K.M.Chaudary/Associated Press

Updated: August 19, 2010

The summer of 2010 produced Pakistan’s worst flooding in 80 years. In a televised address on August 14, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said that 20 million people, about one-ninth of the population, had been displaced by the disaster.

Flooding began on July 22 in the province of Baluchistan. The swollen waters then poured across the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province in the northwest before flowing south into Punjab and Sindh. Estimates of the death toll of the floods range from 1,300 to 1,600.

Television footage from helicopters showed a seemingly endless vista of muddy water, freckled with palm trees. Estimates of grievous long-term economic and political damage from the inundation were constantly revised in more dire directions as the rains continued. Roads, bridges and communications networks across the country were severely damaged, Pakistani officials said.

The floods in Pakistan have upended the Obama administration's carefully honed strategy there, confronting the United States with a vast humanitarian crisis and militant groups determined to exploit the misery, in a country that was already one of its thorniest problems.

Aid and Instability

The devastation raised fears of further instability in Pakistan, a central pillar of American regional strategy to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda but also a place long troubled by a weak government and economic woes. Hard-line Islamic groups stepped in to provide aid where the government has failed to reach; the United States also sent aid with an eye to improving its reputation among ordinary Pakistanis.

For the past year, the Pakistani government and the military were engaged in a campaign to restore public services in Pakistan’s northwest, trying to rebuild trust after more than two million people were displaced in 2009 when government forces launched a major offensive against militants. But the reconstruction efforts were painfully slow, and the public mood shifted from frustrated to furious.

The United Nations appealed for international donations of $460 million, but only one-third of that had been provided as of August 16. The World Bank pledged to reroute money from other projects to provide $900 million in emergency funds to help recovery efforts.

The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who flew over the country on August 15 with President Asif Ali Zardari, said he had never seen such a disaster and urged foreign donors to speed up their assistance. President Zardari, who came under stinging criticism for making a trip to Europe as the flood disaster unfolded, made his first tour of flood-hit areas on August 12.

At Risk for Disease

United Nations officials said that a shortage of aid funds left some six million people, the majority of them children and infants, at risk of potentially lethal diseases borne by dirty water.

Aid workers confirmed the first reports of cholera in the Swat Valley of the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province and in the remote Rajanpur district in Punjab Province.

Cholera is common in South Asia during the rainy season, but flooding that overflows outhouses and sewage canals compounds the problem. The authorities’ ability to contain the disease depends on whether they can get antibiotics to people who are ill and clean water to people who are not.Food Shortage Fears

Even as the government and international relief workers struggle to get food and clean water to millions of flood-stricken Pakistanis, concerns are growing about the enduring toll of the disaster on the nation’s overall economy, food supply and political stability.

Providing clean water for millions and avoiding the spread of diseases like cholera are the first priorities. But there are also looming food shortages and price spikes, even in cities. There is also the danger that farmers will miss the fall> planting season, raising the prospect of a new cycle of shortfalls next year..

The prospect of immediate hunger combining with long-term disruptions to food supplies was a chief concern. The floods have submerged about 17 million acres of Pakistan’s most fertile croplands, in a nation where farming is an economic mainstay. The waters have also killed more than 200,000 head of livestock, and washed away large quantities of stored commodities that feed millions throughout the year.

While dire conditions threaten rural communities, severe inflation and shortages of fresh produce loom for even large urban centers relatively unaffectedCourtesy : Adapted from New York Times

Devastated Floods in Pakistan affect 20 Million people. The world is slow to react: See in picture Pakistan floods

http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Pakistan-floods

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