• 03:17
  • Wednesday ,04 August 2010
العربية

Pakistan floods: Rescuers aim to reach stranded victims

By-BBC

International News

00:08

Wednesday ,04 August 2010

Pakistan floods: Rescuers aim to reach stranded victims

 Rescue teams in northern Pakistan are battling to reach tens of thousands of people still cut off by floodwaters.

Aid agencies said entire villages had been washed away in the region's worst flooding for 80 years.
 
Unicef said 3m people had been affected and 1,400 had been killed. Other estimates said between 800 and 1,500 had died, with 27,000 still trapped.
 
Renewed rain on Tuesday slowed the relief effort, with criticism rising of the pace of the government response.
 
In Swat, where thousands are still rebuilding after a major military operation against Taliban rebels during 2009, the flooding has brought down bridges and left communities cut off.
 
"The civil administration is totally zero in helping," one medical student, Abdullah, told the BBC.
 
"There is no aid agencies here at the moment - I haven't seen anyone, because more than 25 bridges have been swept away. These are the metal bridges for carrying transport."
 
Adnan Khan, a spokesman for the disaster management authority in the worst-affected province, Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, told Reuters news agency that logistics were now an immense challenge.
 
"The entire infrastructure we built in the last 50 years has been destroyed," he said.
 
The BBC's Lyse Doucet, in Islamabad, says the flooding would be a challenge in any country, but is a growing crisis for a country like Pakistan, already suffering economic woes and a Taliban insurgency.
 
Health concerns
The return of monsoon rains has grounded helicopters and raised fears of renewed flooding.
 
The army had hoped that the initial rescue operation could be over in 10 days, but says rebuilding the damaged areas could take more than six months.
 
Local official Mian Iftikhar Hussain said rescue teams were trying to reach 27,000 stranded people, including 1,500 tourists in the Swat Valley.
 
But the biggest challenge for the emergency services is access, as so many areas had their transport and communication links destroyed and are now isolated.
 
There are also concerns that yet more places could flood: a warning was issued to villages close to the Warsak Dam overnight, but no evacuation order was issued.
 
The Pakistani military says it has committed 30,000 troops and dozens of helicopters to the relief effort, but winching individuals to safety is a slow process.
 
Reports say that Islamist groups, some accused of having links to the Taliban, have been providing aid to many of the victims.
 
Some survivors have complained that the government has responded slowly; several hundred people protested in the city of Peshawar, where homeless survivors have crammed into temporary shelters.
 
In Nowshera district one flood victim, Faisal Islam, told the Associated Press: "We need tents. Just look around. This is the only shirt I have. Everything else is buried."
 
Aid agencies say the risk of water-borne diseases spreading will remain high until the floodwaters fully recede. Mr Hussain, the regional information minister, said there were reports of cholera emerging in the Swat Valley.
 
Dr Ahmed Farah Shadoul, the World Health Organization's acting head in Pakistan, told the BBC it was essential to act against the spread of a number of infections, including diarrhoeal diseases, skin problems, eye problems, malaria and fevers, and measles.
 
The UN children's agency Unicef said more than a million children needed emergency aid.
 
Dr Shadoul said he had received reports of people being bitten by snakes, and said the WHO had provided anti-venom in some regions.
 
Food is scarce in the area and water supplies have been contaminated by the floods.
 
Unicef says it has been working with the Pakistani authorities to repair wells and provide chlorine tablets so that water can be treated before it is drunk.
 
"We are also getting confirmation of reports about an outbreak of cholera in some areas of Swat," he added.
 
Governments around the world have pledged millions of dollars in aid, but there has been no decision yet on whether to launch a global appeal for aid.