The United Nations and the government appealed for $357 million in foreign donations Sunday for the ‘Rapid Assessment Plan to Floods 2011’ to urgently help more than seven million people swamped by a second year of catastrophic floods in Sindh and Balochistan provinces.
“The $357 million appeal is only to garner initial life saving assistance to the most affected people” said Timo Pakkala, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan. “We began Rapid Assessment just to make assistance provision system functional but in-depth survey of the situation would be carried out in the coming weeks to assess the losses as the situation is still evolving,” Pakkala said.
He also added that Rapid Assessment showed that nearly every district in Sindh and five districts of Balochistan were flooded, killing 342 people and injuring 633 others so far. Pakkala also added that nearly half a million people were living in relief camps, with 1.35 million homes affected by the floodwaters, and 82 percent in spontaneous settlements needed emergency shelter and the government stocks covered less than 30 percent of the need.
He said that hundreds of thousands of families needed help to recover from lost livestock or crop farming incomes, while only one quarter of Sindh’s population currently had access to markets. “As much as six million acres (2.4 million hectares) of land is under water, including two million acres of arable land. Sindh s fertile lands are the country s breadbasket”, he said. He further added that Pakistan is a country prone to hydro-metrological disasters; however, the frequency and intensity of such disasters have increased in the recent past, primarily due to climate change phenomenon experienced all over the world.
“The situation further compounded due to a number of breaches in all irrigation channels and Left Bank Out-Fall Drain and today millions of people are vulnerable to different diseases, diarrhea, malaria and different infections”. He further added that than 7.1 million were directly affected out of which 491 thousand people were accommodated in 2618 relief camps and as many as 1.3 million houses have been affected.
Pakkala hoped that Pakistan would receive similar generous support as had been extended by international community in the past.
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