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Pakistan's Flash Floods May Have Killed 3,000 People (Update2)
2010-08-01 15:31:04.629 GMT
(Updates with Oxfam comment in eleventh paragraph.)
By Anwar Shakir and Farhan Sharif
Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- As many as 3,000 people may have died
in flash floods that devastated northwestern Pakistan after
heavy rains and affected almost a million people.
"The death toll could go as high as 3,000 because the
level of destruction has been so great," Mujahid Khan, chief
spokesman for Edhi rescue service, said by telephone from
Peshawar yesterday.
The death toll currently stands at 1,025, Khan said today.
The flood disaster follows the deaths of 152 people when a plane
crashed in heavy rain near the capital, Islamabad, on July 28.
Homes and bridges have collapsed in the rain, live electric
wires have fallen into the waters and families have been swept
away in the floods while food supplies for survivors dwindle.
"We can see people drowning but we can't go into the water
because of its high pressure," Khan said two days ago. "The
relief efforts of everyone combined is only 5 percent of what's
required."
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who toured the stricken
province by air, ordered the government provide food to people
at safe locations. The United Nations said two days ago that
almost a million people had been affected by the floods.
Southern Province
Floods may reach the southern province of Sindh within the
next few days, Information Minister Sumsam Bokhari told a news
conference in Islamabad yesterday. The Sindh government has
ordered residents along the banks of the River Indus to be
evacuated.
Army troops equipped with life jackets, motorboats and
heavy rafts were called in yesterday to help move families to
safety, according to a statement on the military's website.
Pakistani television channels showed images of people on
flooded roads grabbing wreckage to keep from being swept away,
drowning goats and buffalo, and makeshift boats.
"All the houses in my village have been destroyed and now
it's simply a fight for survival," Mehmood Khan, a tribal
elder, said by telephone from Wana, South Waziristan, on July
30. "Food supplies have started to run out. We haven't eaten in
48 hours and the scant food supplies we saved for women and
children may not last long."
U.K. charity Oxfam said the flood may be Pakistan's worst
for 35 years. "People in the flood's wake were already
desperately poor and what little possessions they had have been
washed away," said Jane Cocking, Oxfam's humanitarian director.
The charity said it was considering a "sizable aid package."
The districts of Nowshera, Charsadda, Peshawar, Swat, and
Lower Dir are the worst affected, according to the government.
The first spell of the monsoon started on July 22 and
affected the western province of Baluchistan, according to the
National Disaster Management Agency in Islamabad.
For Related News and Information:
Stories on weather: NI WEA BN <GO>
Most-read stories on Pakistan: MNI PAK <GO>
Pakistan general news: TNI PAK GEN <GO>
--With assistance from Khurrum Anis in Karachi. Editors: Paul
Tighe, Keith Campbell.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Anwar Shakir at +92-91-601-3589 or
ashakir1@bloomberg.net;
Farhan Sharif in Karachi at +92-21-3520-2932 or
Fsharif2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Paul Tighe at +61-2-9777-8626 or
ptighe@bloomberg.net
