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Ray Channel · 08-04-2010, 03:34 AM

Death toll in KP flood rises to 1400
Total Views - 13
By: Online on:03 Aug 2010

PESHAWAR – With the subsiding of floodwaters in various affected areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday, the concerned authorities have shifted their focus of attention to relief activities from rescue operations in the province.
Relief camps have been established in almost the entire flood affected areas of the province, wherein efforts are underway to address the challenges of hunger, health and shelter. Relief camps for the flood affectees have been established in the Government-run schools, wherein the head of every school would supervise the overall management of the relief camps. More than 400 relief camps have started the relief activities in the calamity-hit areas including district Swat, Dir, Malakand, Nowshera, Mardan, Peshawar and Charsadda.
Despite the ‘lucid’ announcement of the provincial Government that it would take time to ameliorate the conditions of the masses in the traumatic conditions of floods, people are increasingly becoming impatient telling every media outlet that their problems are not being addressed adequately. The affected people held protests in Dasu besides blocking the main GT Road at Nowshera. They were demanding of the concerned authorities to help them in the hour of need.
In the meantime, the people from Zahi Bala, Malak Ziarat Khan Korona have also migrated to Peshawar and Nowshera to take shelter in Kandhar Relief Camp.
However, the rescue operation in Dera Ismail Khan is yet to be rounded up as the villages in Paharipura and Dera-Bakkar road have been badly affected by the floodwaters threatening the lives of the people in the area while hundreds of people are still stranded in the area.

Tehsil Paruwa turned into waterlogged locality with the large section of population failing to sail towards safer places. Similarly, in Thatta-Baluchan Pak-Army is carrying out rescue operation by means of thirty life saving boats to shift the people of the area to secure areas. Subsequently, hundreds of people in Kohistan are still waiting to be shifted to safer places from Kundia, Daiber, Pattan and Spat valleys.
In Dasu, there are many people, including foreigners, stranded in the flooded areas. On the call of a former MNA from Dasu, Maulana Muhammad Ameen, people have started to hold protest demonstrations against what they termed as the apathy of the government to extend any relief to them. In district Swat and Shangla, relief activities are underway wherein edibles and medicines are being given to the affected people.
According to the Provincial Disaster Management Authorities, there are more than 1.5 million people in the province who have suffered at the hands of the unprecedented floods. The death toll is increasing as according to the unofficial figures, about 1400 people have lost their lives so far with several hundreds are still missing. On the other hand, the official figures have confirmed only 800 death casualiies.
RayChannel - Ray Channel

vinod2070 · 08-04-2010, 01:32 PM

RIP. Suddenly lot of disasters happening all over.

vinod2070 · 08-04-2010, 01:33 PM

sonicboom · 08-10-2010, 12:57 AM

Pakistan floods: 'We are now in God's hands'

Habiba's story is just one of tens of thousands in Sukkur where hungry and bewildered villagers have sought shelter

Saeed Shah in Sukkur, Pakistan guardian.co.uk
Monday 9 August 2010 21.15

Habiba fled with two children but has no news of her husband and other children. Photograph: Saeed Shah for the Guardian

Habiba arrived in Sukkur in the early hours of the morning, after travelling nonstop for three days to find somewhere that had not been washed away by the floods. She left her village, Marakh Bijarani 40 miles away in Kashmore district, with 60 neighbours and relatives packed on to one tractor and trailer, with a few clothes, cooking pots and bedding piled underneath them.

Only half the village managed to escape – those who had taken refuge on the raised bank of a dyke at the moment when the water suddenly rushed in. Habiba made it out with two young children, but she has no idea what happened to her husband and five other children.

"I haven't been able to contact my husband. We have no news on the others," said 40-year-old Habiba, who left her remote home district for the first time in her life when the floods came. "We are now at God's mercy."

"The water came suddenly, when a dyke broke. There was a lot of water. Maybe six, 10 feet. Our houses are gone," said Abdul Sattar, part of the group. They were lent the tractor by the local landowner.

The story of these hungry, bewildered villagers is now commonplace in Sukkur, where tens of thousands of suddenly destitute people, a tide of misery, have arrived from the countryside.

The full scale of the tragedy engulfing Pakistan is now emerging, with the United Nations saying today that the floods, which have entered their third week, have now affected 13.8 million people. This is more than the combined victims of the three most recent big natural disasters the world has faced – the Haiti earthquake in January, the 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan, and the Asian tsunami – although the death toll from the flooding is much lower. Officially it stands at around 1,600, but with so many parts of the country inaccessible, it is feared it could end up being much higher.

In Sukkur many of those stranded by the floods are now sleeping by the sides of roads, under bridges, on the town's bypass and at the railway station. It is oppressively hot and humid, and mosquitoes plague them through the night.

Habiba and her group of fellow villagers are among the relatively lucky ones – they are camped in a school building near the airport after a school caretaker took pity on them. But they have no food and no money, and conditions are squalid.

Trucks and tractors arrive constantly, laden with sacks, beds and mattresses piled high. The human cargo, usually the women and children, perch precariously on top. Some wander into the outskirts of town with their herds of buffalo, their most valuable possession, having walked for days. Shepherds carry shotguns strapped to their bare backs, to ward off bandits.

Sindh province was the last area to be hit by the flooding, as the waters tumbled south across Pakistan, beginning to reach here in a torrent over the weekend. The situation in Sindh, where a large water barrage is also under threat, is now a serious concern to aid agencies and the government.

Under a highway flyover, by the Arain railway station in Sukkur, several hundred people are living in the mud by the sides of the road, many spending their third night out in the open. They have no water or food, with only charity from passing townsfolk keeping them going. They say that they were turned away from government relief camps, which were full.

A newborn baby died by the side of the road today, according to one.

"The ministers, the VIPs pass this spot in their motorcades, but they don't stop," said Shaukat Ali, 45, who had arrived with around 200 people from a village near Ghouspur, in Kashmore district. They were all now living under the flyover, which provided scant shelter from the rain. "If they're not going to give us anything else, at least give us drinking water."

According to Ali, the whole of Kashmore district was under water because the authorities had deliberately flooded it by cutting a hole in the dyke – in order, he claimed, to save the land of a government minister from being inundated. Ali said they had just two hours' notice from the time the dyke was breached to get out. Whether or not the charge was true, it was firmly believed, and causing great anger.

In order to relieve flooding pressure, the authorities are believed to be creating outlets in dykes to empty water on to farm land, though the government has not talked publicly about the practice. Because of the protective dykes, many had stayed in their villages, believing that their homes could not be flooded. But, by Saturday night, they had been proved horribly wrong, as dyke after dyke was breached.

"They [the government] are taking all the aid for themselves. They're pocketing it. There's nothing coming to the people," said Mukhtiar Ali, Shaukat's brother. "The government has done nothing for us. No medicine, no food, no water, no tents, no blankets."

At one of the official aid centres, the government degree college, around 1,500 people have found shelter. The classrooms now have large families camped in them, perhaps 100 crammed into one of the rooms, with just sheets to cover the floor. Young children sit around lifelessly or cry out. Officials at the centre admit that food, water and sanitation fall far short of requirements. "We're all trying to do our best," said the college principal, Bashir Ahmed Ranejo.

There are only 20 government camps in Sukkur, but up to 300,000 refugees have overwhelmed the city. On the northern tip of Sindh, it is now a focal point for the still growing disaster.

Some 300,000 homes in all four provinces of Pakistan have been washed away by the raging waters, as 10,663 villages have been affected – including 2,500 villages in Sindh.

"At the moment Sindh is the biggest concern. It is still developing. Some other areas, like parts of KPK [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the North-West Frontier province] have stabilised," said Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the UN.

However, rescue workers have been unable to reach up to 600,000 people marooned in the north-west Swat Valley, where many residents had been trying to recover from a Taliban takeover which was only beaten back last year.

"The magnitude of the tragedy is so immense that it is hard to assess," said prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani during a visit to the city of Multan, in a flood-hit part of Punjab province.

Pakistan floods: 'We are now in God's hands' | World news | The Guardian

sonicboom · 08-12-2010, 09:45 PM

Why is the world unmoved by the plight of Pakistan?

Angry flood survivors are turning to a banned Islamist charity, reports Andrew Buncombe from central Punjab

Friday, 13 August 2010

Surrounded by brown, fast-shifting water on all sides, the 40 or so families in the village-turned-island had received no food, no medicine and no news as to when they might be rescued.

"We're dying of hunger," shrieked the woman, Sughra Bibi, as volunteers on the boat handed over plastic bags of lentils and cartons of milk to the villagers who gathered around her. One of them shouted out: "We don't care if it's the chief minister or the prime minister, but no one is sending anything to us. We are only waiting for God's help."

Across a huge swathe of central Punjab, Pakistan's famously fertile agricultural belt, now besieged by unprecedented floods, such scenes are being played out a thousand times or more. While countless numbers have by now been rescued from the waters, hundreds remain cut off from dry land.

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Both the rescued and the stranded are hot and angry, tired and bewildered, having seen their livelihoods destroyed and struggling now with just the barest of assistance from the authorities. Even if they had heard the news, few would have been moved by President's Asif Ali Zardari's belated return to the country and his appearance at a photo opportunity yesterday in the south, where he handed out supplies.

Here, amid the small villages west of the city of Multan, home of the country's Prime Minister, Yousaf Gilani, everyone tells the same story as to what happened four days ago: the waters came silently during the night, like a thief slipping into the village. Those who heeded warnings of the anticipated surge had gathered together what they could, and moved themselves to higher ground. Others awoke to find themselves scrambling for their lives amid a landscape of shimmering water where once there had been fields. All they could do was wait for the rescue boats.

The boat which The Independent accompanied flew the black and white banner of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the supposedly banned Islamic charity, accused by the UN Security Council of being a front for militants who allegedly planned and carried out the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai.

In this natural disaster, as in several before, the Lahore-based group has played a central role delivering aid, rescuing people and providing emergency medical help. With the army and civilian rescue teams utterly overstretched by the scale of the disaster – now estimated to affect a quarter of the country – the charity's efforts have been embraced by the public. When they deliver food or rescue somebody, they ensure that people know who is providing this help.

"We are taking out food to people who are stranded," said Navid Umar, a friendly but serious young man from Lahore, who was the group's leader. "We're doing 25 trips a day."

The journey to reach the stranded villagers cut through an unlikely landscape of flooded buildings and verdant date palms, half-submerged by the water, past houses on scraps of land where people lay on charpoy beds and waited for the water to recede.

Elsewhere, small groups struggled through the floods to try and reach help, belongings balanced on their heads, feeling their feet uncertainly in the current. At one point, a man guided his wife, who was covered in a bright white burqa, through a long stretch of water that came up to their waists. Children, oblivious to the nature of the crisis, splashed and played.

It was blisteringly hot, even by the furnace-like standards of a south Asian summer, and on one journey a young woman lifted into the boat to be transported to the "mainland" fainted from the heat. It was suggested that her family try and cool her down by fanning her, but the only thing to use was a slightly sodden Jamaat-ud-Dawa pamphlet, proclaiming the charity's good deeds. The family gladly took it and started to waft it back and forth in front of her face as she lay quietly, her head tilted back.

Aside from the heat, the rescue mission was made more difficult, said Mr Umar, by the likelihood of snakes in the water and the amount of weeds and debris that kept becoming entangled around the propeller shaft of the boat's outboard motor. He said that several times the boat had become grounded and that on one occasion they found themselves stuck on the roof of a flooded house.

In addition, yesterday was also the first day of Ramadan, the month-long fast during which Muslims are not permitted to eat or drink between sunrise and sunset. Islamic teaching makes exceptions for the ill, or else those involved in such emergencies, but the volunteers on the boat said they were observing the fast. Indeed, even though he was delivering food to those in need, Mr Umar appeared a little unsure whether they should actually be taking it.

"Are you fasting," he asked a little sternly of one man who was standing in dirty brown water up to chest. The man, seemingly bewildered, replied: "No, not in these conditions."

Mr Umar was not convinced and demanded to know why. The man sheepishly smiled and headed off with his bag of lentils.

Indeed, Mr Umar appeared to relish the challenge that confronted him and felt no need in any way to dilute his religious obligations. He said that on occasions he and his team had been unable to fulfil all of the five daily prayers according to schedule – catching up the missed one later, as is permitted – but often they would steer their boat towards a piece of land, get out and pray. Asked why a merciful God would permit such deadly, devastating floods, he replied without hesitation: "It is a test for the pious. For those who are not pious, it is a punishment."

While the men from Jamaat were at the forefront of the rescue efforts, they were not the only ones helping the needy of central Punjab. Civilian rescue teams were in attendance, as were the army and, rather incongruously, a group of adult, uniformed Scouts, complete with scarves and woggles.

While followers of Lord Baden-Powell may have had the best uniforms, it was the army that had the best equipment, and a large green truck of the 9th Balouch Regiment thundered through the flood waters, carrying people and sacks of food that had been donated by the local Lions Club.

"The water on this side is going down but on the other side it may be rising," said Mohammed Arshad, a 25-year army veteran, who was also not eating or drinking. "Just two days ago the water was up to the windscreen."

Yet while the water may be slowly receding, at least here, the anger and frustration of people is not. Tens of thousands of people, who had little before the floods arrived, have been evacuated, dropped off at emergency camps in Multan and nearby Muzaffargarh, or, more likely, forced to find shelter on the side of the road leading away from the floods where countless families are camped out. Elsewhere across Pakistan, more rain is predicted and several cities in the southern province of Sindh still risk having their flood defences breached.

About five miles from the floodwater's edge, a group of 38 families from Baseera, all of them kiln-workers, had taken over a sandy hillock. There was no water, no shade, and unlike other families who had managed to save their livestock – buffalo, camels and cattle – this community had just two tethered goats. Each family was occupying a tiny makeshift home constructed from two rope beds and a mat. "All we are left with is what you can see," said Mehboob Ahmed, one of the villagers.

Everyone agreed that they would return as soon as they could, as soon as the water that had taken their homes had gone. They also agreed that these terrible floods were like nothing anyone had ever witnessed before.

Except, perhaps, for Mallick Yaru. Across the string of besieged communities, people spoke of the elderly man who had witnessed the floods of 1929, which also devastated this area and other parts of the country. He was 85, 90 perhaps even 100 years old, they said, and he lived in a village called Chowkgodar, eight miles away, where he had built a mosque on land that he owned.

At the mosque, Mr Yaru was indeed to be found, a wispy, white-haired old man who said he was 85 and resting on a charpoy. Yes, he said, he remembered the floods of 1929. There were fewer people here back then, but the waters had torn through the villages. He was only a boy of four or five at the time, but he insisted that he remembered the floods very clearly. "Those floods that came in 1929 were nothing like this," he declared. "These are very much worse."

Why is the world unmoved by the plight of Pakistan? - Asia, World - The Independent

sonicboom · 08-13-2010, 02:54 PM

Leader’s Absence During Floods Angers Pakistanis

By SALMAN MASOOD and WAQAR GILLANI

August 13, 2010

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —With Pakistanis bracing for more rain and floods, President Asif Ali Zardari struggled Friday to confront a barrage of criticism over his recent visit to Europe while rivers gorged by monsoon rains ravaged scores of towns — a trip that critics have derided as “insensitive” and a “joyride.”

The flooding, which began in late July, has killed an estimated 1,600 people and affected a total of 14 million, according to relief agencies. Aid agencies and the United Nations warned Friday that the disaster was still mounting, with outbreaks of water-borne disease an additional likelihood.

“We want to warn everyone that the crisis facing Pakistan is enormous,” said Mengesha Kebede, a representative of the United Nations refugee agency. “There continues to be massive destruction as the bloated rivers flow inexorably southwards across the plains.”

A day after Mr. Zardari visited flood-affected areas in his native Sindh Province, a spokesman announced Friday that the president would cut short, but not cancel, a planned visit to Russia and forgo celebrations of Pakistan’s Independence Day later this month and instead visit flood victims.

Such gestures, some analysts said, may be inadequate.

“I think he is in serious trouble,” said Ikram Sehgal, a defense and political analyst based in Karachi. “It was extremely insensitive of him to leave the country. It has gone down very badly and has left the country shaken.”

Health workers said that while supplies of food and safe drinking water have been a priority, they have been alarmed by health hazards from dirty floodwater warming in the daytime summer heat.

“If we don’t act fast enough, the death toll will increase,” said Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian effort. He said about 36,000 potentially lethal cases of acute diarrhea had been reported to health authorities.

In southern Punjab Province on Friday, the government was trying to help large numbers of people on the move as new flood fears remained in the Muzzafargarh District. Up to 800,000 people in the district were evacuated late Thursday and remained camped along the sides of roads, said Farasat Iqbal, the district administrator.

Many areas outside the district’s main city, also called Muzzafargarh, remained underwater on Friday, Mr. Iqbal said.

“The city is under threat from the River Chenab. The next 24 hours are crucial,” he said. “Many parts of the districts, including towns and villages, are inundated.”

New flooding also was reported in the Rajan Pur district in southern Punjab Province, said district police officer Suhail Zafar Chathha.

“The water is five to six feet up in many towns and villages in the district, including the worst-hit areas of Jampur and Kot Mithan,” Mr. Chathha said. “More than 60 percent of the population of the district is affected and more flooding is coming.”

The death toll, as well as damage to the country’s infrastructure and livestock, may be far greater than suggested by early estimates, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said in a report carried by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.

The flooding has affected as much as a quarter of Pakistan, Mr. Giuliano, the United Nations official, said in a telephone interview, and the relief effort is proving to be a massive logistical challenge for the government and relief agencies.

“We’re assessing a situation while the disaster is still evolving,” he said.

The International Monetary Fund said the rising waters had caused major economic damage.

In a statement, Mr. Kebede, from the United Nations refugee agency, said that “this crisis will not be over when the flood waters recede” and that hunger and illness would expose women and children in particular “to grave situations.”

Salman Masood reported from Islambad and Waqar Gillani from Punjab Province, Pakistan. Kevin Drew contributed reporting from Hong Kong and Alan Cowell from Paris.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/wo...er=rss&emc=rss

sonicboom · 08-13-2010, 07:04 PM

Pakistan flood response prompts rising anti-government resentment

Under fire president Asif Ali Zardari tries to ease public anger amid fears he could be overthrown

Friday 13 August 2010

Pakistan's government faces the threat of social unrest or even military takeover after its shambolic response to the floods that have devastated the country, leaving 1,600 people dead and 2 million homeless, say analysts.

Fears that Asif Ali Zardari, the president, could be overthrown – possibly through an intervention by the army – have grown as the government's failure to adequately tackle the crisis has fuelled long-held grievances.

"The powers that be, that is the military and bureaucratic establishment, are mulling the formation of a national government, with or without the PPP [the ruling Pakistan People's party]," said Najam Sethi, editor of the weekly Friday Times. "I know this is definitely being discussed. There is a perception in the army that you need good governance to get out of the economic crisis and there is no good governance."

Rescuers are struggling to help the 14 million people affected across the country, with fresh flood warnings today forcing thousands more to flee the city of Jacobabad. But the impact of the disaster will be felt throughout Pakistan's 170m population.

The agricultural heartland has been wiped out, which will result is spiralling food prices and longterm shortages. Many roads and irrigation canals have been destroyed, along with much electricity supply infrastructure.

"The immediate risk is one of food riots," said Marie Lall, an Asia expert at Chatham House.

So many roads and bridges had been destroyed that food could not be delivered to victims, she added.

"There is already great resentment in Swat and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where people had to be cleared during the government offensive. Now there is the threat of social and communal unrest as various factions, families and ethnic groups compete with each other in the event of a breakdown in government."

The World Bank estimates that crops worth $1bn (£640m) have been ruined and the Pakistani finance secretary warned today that the disaster would cut the country's growth in half.

The government may have to spend $1.7bn on reconstruction, and has said it will have to divert expenditure from badly needed development programmes.

With the economy currently surviving on an IMF bailout, experts predict that another may be necessary.

US and European diplomats are gravely concerned about the situation, as Pakistan is crucial in the fight against al-Qaida and the war in neighbouring Afghanistan. The EU has moved Pakistan to the top of its agenda. Cathy Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, said the west could not afford to abandon the country. "Pakistan is faced with so many issues, not just the floods, terror, development, India. It's in the EU's interest that we have a stable and prosperous Pakistan," she said.

Zardari, who left the country after the floods began and continued on his trip to France and Britain even when the scale of the disaster became apparent, is the focus of much of the anger.

Despite the outcry, he is pressing ahead with a visit to a regional summit in Russia next week. A spokesman said the president had cut the planned two-day trip to "a couple of hours".

With the government overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, Islamic groups, including extremist organisations such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, have stepped into the gap. The military has also distributed aid in areas where locals complain that government help is almost entirely absent.

"If the military takes over now, I can assure you that it will be the end of Pakistan, an end which will be punctuated by a very bloody civil war," said Asad Sayeed, an analyst based in Karachi. "Pakistan is a very divided country right now."

Pakistan has lurched from crisis to crisis in its 63-year history. The break-up of the country in 1971 can be linked to another natural disaster, when authorities responded slowly to a devastating cyclone. A secessionist movement in East Pakistan capitalised on public anger to successfully fight for independence as Bangladesh.

In the flood-hit areas, people say they are bewildered by the government's response, with accusations and conspiracy theories abounding.

At the side of the Indus river in Sukkur town, Sindh province, shopowner Ali Sher gave a scathing reaction to government promises of aid.

"They [the government] want to drown Sukkur," he said. "They want to show some bodies, so they can ask for more aid from other countries. They are after dollars."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...ent-resentment

noname · 08-14-2010, 09:04 PM

So far 1600 dead, there was 21000 dead in the Haiti earthquake and far more injured.

vinod2070 · 08-15-2010, 03:49 AM

My understanding is that the full extent of casualties is not yet clear and it could be much bigger as several areas are fully inundated and have not been reached.

sonicboom · 08-16-2010, 09:16 PM

This Flood Disaster is More Manmade than Natural‏

August 16, 2010

There is a very sinister aspect to the floods in Pakistan which no one is discussing in media. While there were rains and flooding in some rivers of the country, the size, scale and amount of water which came into these rivers so suddenly defies logic, considering that rains have slowed down for couple of weeks now but floods continue to rise in Indus and Chenab. There were no flooding in India or in Afghanistan but the rivers that flow into Pakistan swelled beyond logic, causing death and devastation of unprecedented scale. Indians and Afghans have used water as weapon for the first time to deluge Pakistan. There is no doubt about it. This flood disaster is more manmade than natural.

All major rivers flowing into Pakistan including Indus are blocked by Dams by India. On Chenab River, Baglihar is the biggest project. After the first wave of floods, all the other inflowing rivers are flowing normally and there are no extra ordinary rains as well but suddenly Chenab and Indus Rivers go into high floods. Baghliar Dam has opened its flood gates to cause flooding in Chenab. While Sarobi Dam near Kabul controls Kabul river entering Pakistan.

The argument which the traitor ANP always gave to block the construction Kalabagh Dam was that it would drown and submerge Nowshehra city upstream, non-sense logic to start with. Ironically, even without this Dam, the city of Nowshshra and Charsadda were drowned in artificial floods created in Kabul river created by their Indian and Afghan patrons. Even more ironic is that fact that Charsadda is the stronghold and base regions of ANP!! Now they should be put on trial for their role in helping Indians to cause these floods! InshAllah soon.

How does Pakistan respond to this latest Indian water war and aggression remains to be seen. There is no hope from this government. This water aggression has proved more lethal than TTP and BLA insurgencies. Pakistan has taken another serious hit, more from its corrupt rulers than external enemies. These Indian Dams now need to be destroyed! India has declared war on us by exploiting and orchestrating these floods!

InshAllah Khair. Nation is alive, rising and charging forward to defend the land and the ideology. The time for change is now. Prepare yourself, make best of Ramazan. Allah has not abandoned us. InshAllah very soon we shall see His Rehmat!

This Flood Disaster is More Manmade than Natural