Flood aid flowing very slowly to desperate Pakistan
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COMMENTS 
Flood-ravaged Pakistan has received international aid of $ 301 million, but the flow of money remains slow. The devastating floods have affected up to 20 million people and left some 2,000 dead, say officials
Pakistan’s worst ever natural disaster has claimed around 2,000 lives in three weeks as torrential monsoon rain triggered catastrophic floods that wiped out villages, farmland and infrastructure, affecting an estimated 20 million people.
Islamabad has confirmed around 1,400 deaths, but WHO representative Guido Sabatinelli said he suspected the toll was much higher. “It’s difficult to predict. We’re talking about 20 million people affected today and there is no infrastructure and no health centres that can register the deaths,” he said.
Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Zamir Akram, has said the country has received immediate multilateral relief aid through the UN and direct bilateral aid totalling around $ 301 million. The UN last week launched an immediate appeal for $ 460 million but it said on August 17, 2010, that funding so far was only 40% of the target.
Regional director for the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) Daniel Toole said: “Two million dollars are needed every day to provide water; this is not sustainable. We don’t have 2 million dollars a day. I would ask urgently the international community to change pledges into cheques. We need an urgent effort.”
Unicef described the floods in Pakistan as “probably the biggest emergency on the planet today,” estimating that over 5,500 schools and 1,300 health centres have either been damaged or destroyed, and that nearly 5,000 schools are now housing displaced families.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it fears Pakistan is on the brink of a “second wave of death” unless more funds materialise, with up to 6 million people deemed to be at risk of deadly waterborne diseases, with typhoid, hepatitis and cholera being major concerns.
Bill Berger, USAID’s principal regional adviser for South Asia, said it had been difficult to communicate the scale of the disaster to the rest of the world: “Remember that this flood has built up over time… I just don’t think the world has realised the magnitude of this now, because this story has just been slowly increasing. It doesn’t have the drama of an earthquake that impacts a huge number of people all at once.” The floods began more than two weeks ago in the mountainous northwest and has swept south across a quarter of the country, including its agricultural heartland.
Source: The Hindu, August 18, 2010
PTI, August 18, 2010
BBC, August 18, 2010
AFP, August 18, 2010