Devastating Pakistan floods now threaten food crisis

By Faris Ali; additional reporting by Asim Tanveer, Augustine Anthony and Kamran Haider in Islamabad and Junaid Khan in Swat; reporting and writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Nick Macfie
Wed Aug 4, 2010 9:43am EDT NOWSHERA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistanis facing life-threatening shortages scoured towns for belongings and food in several areas on Wednesday after floods killed 1,400 people and threw the spotlight President Asif Ali Zardari’s fragile leadership. Ethnic violence in Pakistan’s biggest city Karachi is also piling pressure on the government, widely criticized for its handling of the floods in the northwest, the worst in 80 years, that have devastated the lives of more than three million people. Zardari left for Europe earlier this week on state visits. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber killed a senior police officer in the northwestern town of Peshawar, reminding Pakistanis that militants still pose a serious threat despite army crackdowns. It’s too early to gauge the economic cost of the floods but they are likely to be staggering. Pakistan is heavily dependent on foreign aid and its civilian governments have a poor history of managing crises, leaving the powerful military to step in. “People have lost their food stocks. The markets are not up and running. Shops have collapsed. People are definitely in the greatest need of food,” said WFP spokesman Amjad Jamal. In Nowshera in the northwest, one of the worst-hit areas, former army officer Mohammad Yaseen and other villagers picked through rubble hoping to find food and a few of their belongings. People washed clothes waist deep in water. Rugs hung from the legs of water towers as dozens of bloated buffalo carcasses lay in muddy streets. “After two days, a helicopter came and dropped some bottles of water and packets of biscuits but nobody tried to evacuate us,” he said. “After four days, boats came but the water level had receded and there was no point in leaving the house.” His village of Pashtun Gari was home to about 2,500 families who made their living from dairy farming and wheat harvesting. Now the village and his house are steeped in mud and the stench of burst sewage lines and dead cows permeates the air. “We have sent a request to the government and we are getting six helicopters from them and we will be doing air drops to the areas which are cut off,” WFP’s Jamal told Reuters by telephone. “A lot of agriculture-based activities have gone under water. So people may not be able to harvest or even sow their crops.” The floods, which started a week ago, are likely to spread as more rains are expected. A breakout of water-borne diseases such as cholera would pose new risks. Before the waters began raging, more than a million people were already forced from their homes in the northwest by fighting between the army and Taliban militants. …