THE DEATH toll from Pakistan’s worst floods in a generation climbed above 1,100 yesterday as rescuers in boats and helicopters battled to reach 27,000 people trapped on high ground or clinging to rooftops and trees.
Torrential monsoon rain has swelled rivers in the northwest to bursting point, washing away villages, toppling bridges and ripping up roads in areas already hard hit by fighting between Pakistan’s army and militants.
Officials said the floods were the country’s worst since 1929. Government and UN workers are still assessing the scale of the disaster, but reports suggest tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed.
“It is the biggest catastrophe not only because so many people have been forced to leave their homes but also the infrastructure is completely destroyed,” said Saeed Malik, a volunteer with Edhi, a private ambulance service.
As military helicopters plucked survivors to safety in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, a rugged territory formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province, officials monitored weather reports for signs the floods might spread. Parts of the western Baluchistan province and Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous region, are already under water.
Disaster officials in Sindh, home to the teeming commercial capital of Karachi, are also bracing themselves for the possibility of flooding. UN officials say one million people have been affected nationwide.
Aid workers said that floodwaters showed signs of receding in the north-west at the weekend, but warned survivors would remain vulnerable.
“Waterborne diseases such as cholera are a huge risk,” said Nicki Bennett, a UN humanitarian official.
The UN is seeking to mobilise a relief infrastructure set up to help people uprooted by fighting in the northwest between Pakistan’s army and Taliban insurgents. Some of the worst-affected areas lie in the Swat Valley, where some two million people were forced to flee their homes in fighting last year. Of those, about a million are still displaced.
Many survivors criticised the response of the administration of Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president, who is visiting the UK this week. “The government has so far utterly failed to provide adequate relief,” said Mukhtar Khan, a taxi driver from Nowshera, a town in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, who fled the floodwaters with his two wives and seven children to seek refuge in Pakistan’s capital. “I have come to Islamabad to stay with my brother. Not everyone has a brother to offer support.”
Mr Zardari’s political opponents have criticised his decision to press ahead with his trip to meet British prime minister David Cameron, who provoked outrage in Pakistan last week by accusing it of “looking both ways” on exporting terror during a visit to arch-rival India.
Maulana Umar Khattab, a prayer leader from Mardan, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, said Mr Zardari’s decision to continue with his trip showed Pakistan’s leaders were detached from their people’s suffering. “Our people are dying and all that concerns the president is a visit to the UK. President Zardari, just like other leaders, once again is proving himself to be self-serving.”
The military said it had deployed 30,000 troops who had evacuated 19,000 trapped people by Saturday. – (The Financial Times Limited 2010)