Floodwaters still washing away lives in Pakistan
By MARY FITZGERALD Foreign Correspondent for The Irish Times
Saturday, December 11, 2010 Dadu, southern Pakistan — The world has moved on from the disaster, but in villages and camps the horror is still unfolding THE IRONY of being surrounded by water but not having enough to drink is not lost on Longkhan Solangi, the wiry septuagenarian patriarch of an extended family that includes 30 grandchildren. Sitting on a rope bed in the open air of what was once his thriving village, Longkhan gestures at the murky pools of stagnant floodwater around him, lined with green slime. Then he points to the horizon, his bony finger tracing what looks like a vast inland lake shimmering in the afternoon sun. “Look at all that water, more water than I have ever seen in my life, and yet we are looking for water every day to drink,” he says bitterly. Longkhan and the other returned residents of Reejhpur, a hamlet of 2,000 people located in Dadu, a district of Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, at least have road access to their ruined homes. Dozens of other villages in the area are still cut off, accessible only by boat or helicopter. Dadu was one of the last places engulfed by the swollen Indus river as it coursed through Sindh before emptying into the Arabian Sea, and now it is one of the last to remain under water. More than four months after the beginning of the floods that wrought havoc as they washed down along Pakistan’s spine, from its mountainous north to the rich farmland of Punjab and on to Sindh, the waters have receded elsewhere, but here in Dadu’s desolate plains they refuse to go away. The road to Reejhpur is surrounded on all sides by waterlogged fields broken only by an occasional knot of trees. In the village some houses built on higher ground are still standing – many of which bear the tell-tale damp line left behind by 10ft-high floodwaters – but most of the traditional mud-walled homes are now nothing more than piles of bricks. A quarter of Reejhpur’s inhabitants are still living in the camps they fled to when the waters first crept around the village. Those who have returned sleep under blue tents provided by aid agencies. All complain of being tormented by mosquitoes that swarm from the foul-smelling pools and creeks. Mothers talk of children constantly falling sick due to poor sanitation. Many villagers have worn the same clothes for months – they have nothing else but what they were wearing when they escaped the deluge. … The world’s attention has moved on since August, when the UN calculated that the total affected by Pakistan’s floods – up to 20 million people – amounted to a number greater than the Asian tsunami, the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir and this year’s earthquake in Haiti combined. The World Bank has put the estimated cost of flood recovery at $9.7 billion (€7.3 billion). Foreign donors have so far contributed just under half of the $2 billion the UN asked for in September, the largest-ever appeal by it for a natural disaster. … More than €45 million worth of donations to the prime minister’s flood relief fund remains unspent. A government electronic cash card scheme, designed to give each of the worst-off families a sum equivalent to more than €800 to rebuild their homes and lives, has been dogged with problems. “We have reports of people not knowing how to use the cash cards, machines not having any cash, not having any power. There have been issues of access … it’s a significant issue,” said Amil Khan of Oxfam. …
