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Donate Now to the Pakistan Floods Appeal

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The United Nations has said it needs at least 40 more helicopters to help reach an estimated 800,000 people who have been cut off by the floods in Pakistan.

The UN appeal was an indication of the massive problems facing the relief effort, more than three weeks after the floods hit the country.

“These unprecedented floods pose unprecedented logistical challenges, and this requires an extraordinary effort by the international community,” John Holmes, UNunder-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said.

The disaster is also raising concerns about exacerbating social unrest and political instability, as the nation struggles with an ongoing insurgency.

Pakistani officials are attempting to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund on how to shore-up the battered economy to help maintain stability.

Meanwhile emergency teams are working to shore up a system of levees protecting two southern cities as the crisis continues to grow.

The worst floods in decades, which began nearly a month ago with hammering rains in the country’s northwest, have affected more than 17 million people, the UN said.

Now, the waters are spreading through the rice-growing belt in southern Sindh province district by district, breaking through or flowing over embankments one by one.

“The floods are outrunning our relief efforts. We move faster and faster, but the finish line keeps moving further ahead,” United Nations spokesman Maurizio Giuliano added.

Flooding In Sindh Province

View Pakistan Floods in a larger map

In Shadad Kot, in Sindh province, authorities are increasingly worried that even the 10 miles of new levees soldiers have built may not hold back the waters from the city as well as Qambar city further south.

Workers have piled stones and sandbags to plug leaks in the levees, trying to keep on top of any damage to the defences.

Around 90% of Shadad Kot’s 350,000 residents have already fled the city and many have also left Qambar and other nearby towns.

On the eastern side of the city, levees were under pressure from nine-foot high floodwaters, said Yaseen Shar, a top administrative official.

High tides in the Arabian Sea have hampered drainage of the Indus River and are expected to hamper flood relief until for days to come.

Pakistani flood survivors evacuate Shadad Kot village

Flood survivors flee Shadad Kot as emergency workers battle to reinforce the levees

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari has defended the government’s much-criticised response to the country’s record-breaking flood crisis.

Authorities have been accused of moving too slowly, and Islamist charities, some with suspected links to militant groups, have rapidly provided relief to Pakistanis already frustrated with their leaders’ track record on security, poverty and chronic power shortages.

Mr Zardari said anger at the government in the coming months is inevitable given the scale of the disaster, comparing it to the anti-government sentiment generated by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the US.

“There will be discontent, there is no way any nation, even a superpower…. can bring the same level of satisfaction that will be close to the expectations of the people,” he said.

“Surely we will try and meet them as much as we can.”

But he insisted the government “had functioned to its fullest capacity”.

The IMF has said it will review Pakistan’s budget and economic prospects due to the magnitude of the disaster.

Agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, has been hit hard. The floods have destroyed or extensively damaged crops over 4.25 million acres of land, food minister Nazar Muhammad Gondal said.

The IMF help may come in the form of lowering some of the fiscal targets of the loan program or allowing the government to abandon it and take IMF emergency funding for countries hit by natural disasters.

:: Donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Pakistan Floods Appeal by visiting the website or by phone No. +923439555544

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