Pakistan town submerged amid fight to rebuild levees
BBC
29 August 2010 Floodwater has submerged a town in the southern province of Sindh, and threatens another being used as a key staging post for flood relief workers. Sujawal, a town of some 250,000 people, has been submerged while people battle to save the nearby city of Thatta, reports say. Authorities are still trying to rebuild levees around Thatta against the raging Indus river. But water is still advancing on the all-but-abandoned city, reports say.
“We fled so hastily that we could not even pick up our belongings,” Amena Bibi, a mother of four, told the BBC. “We are sitting in this graveyard under the blazing sun, looking for shade here and there. We have nothing to eat. The floodwater swept away our cows and buffalo.” … The massive floods have left some eight million people in need of emergency relief. The lack of proper sanitation and cramped living conditions mean disease could spread quickly, says the BBC’s Jill McGivering in Islamabad. Four weeks since the flooding began, the scale of this humanitarian crisis is still growing. And on the ground, the amount of aid available is a long way from meeting the need, our correspondent says. …
