The recent flooding caused by the monsoon in Pakistan has caused more devastation than the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, Haiti and Kashmir earthquakes combined, according to Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
New heavy rainfall is also worsening the situation and hampering efforts by relief agencies to get aid to people in the worst-hit areas. More than 1600 people have been killed so far and millions more have had to flee their homes or have been otherwise affected by the flooding.
Hundreds of thousands of homes have been washed away, as have hundreds of roads, bridges, farms, crops and livestock.
In the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, further heavy rains have seriously hampered relief efforts in what was already a severely affected region. Flooding is also now spreading to the main agricultural regions of central Punjab and further south into Sindh province along the Indus river.
Although the death toll is much smaller than those other disasters, the amount of people being affected by the current flooding is estimated at 13 million – three times as many as those affected by the other three disasters combined.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani viited Sindh Province over the weekend and called for more international aid. Billions of dollars will be required to help the Pakistan recovery, according to the UN, with the most urgent needs being for shelter for the millions of people made homeless. Gilani added that the country has been set back years by the devastation.
The World Health Organization has also highlighted the need for safe, clean drinking water, warning that Pakistanis are at high risk from water-borne diseases such as cholera and diarrhea.
