Pakistan Flood

The number of people suffering from the flooding exceeds the total of those affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, according to the United Nations.

The death toll in each of those disasters was much higher than the 1,500 killed so far in the floods that first hit Pakistan two weeks ago, but the U.N. estimates that 13.8 million people will need aid to recover.

Unfortunately the amount of financial aid being sent to Pakistan is minimal.

The UN has stated that about 800,000 people have been cut off by floods in Pakistan and are only reachable by air, adding it needs at least 40 more helicopters to ferry lifesaving aid to increasingly desperate people.

Their appeal was an indication of the massive problems facing the relief effort in Pakistan more than three weeks after the floods hit the country, affecting more than 17 million people and raising concerns about possible social unrest and political instability.

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

Earlier, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said hundreds of health facilities had been damaged and tens of thousands of medical workers displaced and the country’s chief meteorologist warned that it would be two weeks until the Indus River – the focus of the flooding still sweeping through the country – returns to normal levels.

“The flood situation is not yet over,” Chaudhry said, adding that the Indus would reach peak flood stage late this week.

The floods began with hammering monsoon rains in the northwest and have swept southwards.

Many of those cut off are in the mountainous northwest, where roads and bridges have been swept away.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that about 700,000 Pakistanis have been forced into makeshift settlements just in the southern province of Sindh.

While there have been no major disease outbreaks because of the floods, aid agencies are increasingly worried, saying contaminated water and a lack of proper sanitation were already causing a spike in medical problems in camps for the displaced.

“Pakistan and its people are experiencing the worst natural calamity of its history,” Gilani said at a meeting on health issues in the flood zone. “As human misery continues to mount, we are seriously concerned with spread of epidemic diseases.”

More than 3.5 million children are at risk from waterborne diseases, he said, and skin diseases, respiratory infections and malnutrition are spreading in flooded areas.

The problem is compounded by the flood’s impact on the country’s medical system – which has long been badly overstretched and underfunded. Gilani said the floods had damaged more than 200 health facilities, and that about one-third of the country’s 100,000 women health workers have been displaced. Those health workers are the main primary medical care to millions of rural Pakistani women.

The aid group World Vision said it could be three months until some families are able to return to their homes.

“People are in urgent need of almost everything: shelter, health clinics, clean water, sanitation and livelihood support,” Mike Bailey, the group’s regional manager for advocacy said in a statement.

Local charities, the Pakistani army and international agencies are providing food, water, medicine and shelter to the displaced, but millions have received little or no help.