Pakistan to receive aid for worst flood in 80 years

Pakistani survivors of the country’s worst floods in generations are demonstrating over inaction from the government, where hordes of people have been crammed into shelters while the death toll now reaching 1,100 people.

2 August 2010, 12:00am

1 min read

Fifty-three year-old Worker Ejaz Khan demonstrating in the nothwestern city of Peshawar said "I had built a two-room house on the outskirts of Peshawar with my hard-earned money but I lost it in the floods."

"The government is not helping us... the school building where I sheltered is packed with people, with no adequate arrangement for food and medicine," Khan said.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon expressed his sadness for the loss of lives caused by the worst floods in 80 years, affecting over 1.5 million people in the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He pledged extra aid of up to $10 million to help in the crisis, and commitment to “meeting the humanitarian needs” of the locals.

The province’s information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said over 3,700 homes have been destroyed, leaving an enormous number of people homeless. Survivors have been sheltering in schools in Peshawar, with new fears of the emergence of waterborne diseases.

Hussain said rescue teams were trying to reach 1,500 tourists stranded in Swat district, the scene of a major anti-Taliban military offensive last year.

Pakistan’s meteorological office said the province had been hit by 312 millimetres (12 inches) of rain in 36 hours.

The US government announced an initial 10-million-dollar aid pledge and has rushed helicopters and boats to Pakistan.