20 million homeless in Pakistan flooding – More heavy rains forecast
By Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent, The Australian
August 16, 2010 12:00AM CHOLERA surfaced in Pakistan yesterday as the estimate of people made homeless by flooding climbed to 20 million. UN chief Ban Ki-moon landed in a Pakistan Air Force jet at Chaklala air base yesterday morning, local time, for talks with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, and to visit the affected areas. “I’m here also to urge the world community to speed up their assistance to the Pakistani people,” he said. “Remember that the whole world is behind the people of Pakistan in this time of trial.” The floods that have devastated the subcontinent are believed to have killed close to 1600 people in Pakistan and at least 130 in India’s Himalayan district of Ladakh. Pakistani officials said yesterday that the floods were now “on par” with the devastating 2005 Kashmir earthquake that killed about 79,000 people. Officials estimate that a quarter of Pakistan has been affected by the flooding. Ten days of monsoonal rains have obliterated billions of dollars worth of buildings, infrastructure and crops in a nation already struggling with a raging militant insurgency and economic downturn. UN agencies and aid groups say the response to the international appeal has been sluggish, warning of a second wave of death from disease, with at least six million now dependent on humanitarian assistance to survive. One case of cholera was confirmed in Mingora, the main town in the northwest’s Swat Valley, and other cases were expected, UN spokesman Maurizio Giuliano said yesterday. Cholera kills swiftly without treatment and containing outbreaks is considered a high priority following floods. And yet the worst of the weather could still be to come. Meteorologists have forecast more heavy rains for the northwest regions of Peshawar and Swat, as well as the agriculturally important southern regions of Punjab and Sindh. …
