That's near my home country australia's population. I wonder what these folk think of so-called US republican lawmakers
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Pakistan Seeks Emergency Supplies as Worst Floods Ravage South
2010-08-12 06:35:07.726 GMT
By Khurrum Anis and Peter S. Green
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistani officials battling the
most destructive floods in the country's history appealed for
urgent deliveries of food, shelters and medicine for 14 million
displaced people.
"We need relief supplies immediately, not today, not
tomorrow but right now," Ahmed Kamal, spokesman for the
National Disaster Management Authority, said by phone from
Islamabad, the capital, hours after the United Nations launched
an appeal for $460 million in emergency aid.
Mosquito nets, tents and tarpaulins, kits to prevent
cholera, ready-to-eat meals and water-purifying tablets are all
needed as the catastrophe that has killed at least 1,600 people
enters its third week. Pakistan's resources "will run out in
the next 25 days, or if we can stretch them, in the next 40
days," Kamal said.
Flood surges triggered by unprecedented monsoon rains have
swept south along the 3,200-kilometer (2,000-mile) long Indus
River, decimating low-lying areas of Punjab and Sindh provinces,
the densely populated economic and agricultural heartland of
Pakistan, damaging 722,000 homes. About 700,000 hectares of
standing crops, including rice and cotton, are under water or
destroyed by floodwaters, the Food and Agriculture Organization
has said.
Thunderstorms are expected to bring more rain to the north
of Pakistan in the next 24 hours, Muhammad Riaz, the chief
meteorologist said by phone from Karachi, though they are not
expected to be heavy.
'Thousands Stranded'
"This is a major disaster," John Holmes, the UN's
emergency relief coordinator, said in New York yesterday. The
U.S. has pledged $55 million in emergency aid.
"Thousands are still stranded in their homes because they
are refusing to leave," said Rizwan Ullah Baig, director-
general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in
Punjab, where 7 million people have fled the floods. "We are
getting them food and other relief by air."
Water is roaring through a system of barrages along the
Indus at rates exceeding 1 million cubic feet per second, up to
10 times the normal levels.
"The flooding in Pakistan has the potential to be
significantly more disastrous" than the 2005 Pakistan
earthquake that killed about 86,000 people, Defense Secretary
Robert Gates said yesterday. The Pentagon said in a statement
last night that Gates had authorized the deployment of 19 Navy
and Marine Corps helicopters to support the flood-relief effort.
The 19 choppers will relieve six U.S. Army helicopters already
in Pakistan that were loaned from operations in Afghanistan.
Dam Fears
Pakistan's ambassador to the UN, Abdullah Haroon, said the
floods have returned some areas to a "primordial" state. "At
least 6,000 villages have been ''wiped off the face of the
Earth,'' he said at a press conference yesterday with Holmes.
In Sindh concern has mounted over a possible breach of the
Kotri dam, the last before the city of Hyderabad, which with its
1.6 million people is the country's sixth largest and the
biggest conurbation directly on the river. Large parts of the
province's north have already gone under.
''We have managed to evacuate some 800,000 people from the
flood-stricken areas," said Khai Muhammad Kalwar, a relief
official in the province. "Another 700,000 people have also
made their way to safety themselves." Up to 100,000 more were
unwilling to leave their belongings.
"It has been three days since we have issued a warning to
evacuate to the people of Larkana city and Qambar-Shahdadkot but
they are not willing to leave," Kalwar said. "The total
population of both these cities is 1.6 million."
Refinery Shuts
Six million children have been affected by the floods, with
some 2.7 million children in need of urgent, life-saving
assistance, the New York-based United Nations Children's Fund
said in a statement on its website yesterday.
The U.S. and Islamic militant groups, both pushing for
influence in the world's sixth-most populous country, have sent
teams to help homeless villagers in areas of the ethnic Pashtun
northwest that for two years have been combat zones.
Pak-Arab Refinery Ltd. yesterday closed its Multan plant,
which processes a third of the country's crude oil, and said it
may start supplying fuel again within a week.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari urged his people and
Muslims around the world to give generously during Ramadan to
help flood victims.
Zardari was criticized by the opposition for proceeding
with a trip to Europe as the floods spread. He responded by
calling on his opponents not to politicize the natural disaster.
--With assistance from Farhan Sharif in Karachi, James Rupert in
New Delhi, Jason Gale in Singapore, and Viola Gienger, Anthony
Capaccio and Flavia Krause-Jackson in Washington. Editors: Mark
Williams, Bill Austin
For Related News and Information:
Stories on weather: NI WEA BN
Most-read stories on Pakistan: <a href="bloomberg:%3CF%23%3E1%3CMNI%20PAK%3CGO%3E">MNI PAK
Pakistan general news: <a href="bloomberg:%3CF%23%3E1%3CTNI%20PAK%20GEN%3CGO%3E">TNI PAK GEN
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