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Devastating Floods Affect Thousands

DW StaffJuly 13, 2007

The United Nations children's agency has called for urgent action to meet the needs of millions of children who have been badly affected by deadly floods in India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Afghanistan. The worst-hit areas are in Pakistan, where an estimated two million people are affected by floods triggered by four days of heavy rain after Cyclone Yemyin hit late last month.

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Pakistani President speaks with flood victims in Turbat
Pakistani President speaks with flood victims in TurbatImage: AP

UNICEF has issued an appeal for five million US dollars to deal with immediate needs such as food and shelter for the thousands of victims of the heavy rains and floods.

The UN has also deployed a five-member Disaster Assessment and Co-ordination team to assess the situation and other international aid agencies are also helping the Pakistani government in their relief efforts.

Aktion Deutschland Hilft is an alliance of ten German NGOs working in Sindh in the south of the country. Christophe Ernesti, the alliance's representative in Pakistan, explained that they had distributed relief goods to 500 families so far -- mainly rice, oil, sugar.

"Food is what is most needed at the moment and access to water is also a very big problem," he explained. "People are drinking water from the fields, especially children, and they are being affected by diarrhoea."

Tents and quilts

In Balochistan in the south-west of the country, the distribution of aid started over a week ago. Tents, plastic sheets, sleeping mats, quilts and kitchen sets were provided for the flood victims by relief workers.

Major General Saleem Nawaz, who is responsible for the relief and rehabilitation work in the province, said there were about three to four hundred thousand displaced people. "They are being assisted by the government and NGOs to sustain themselves until they can be rehabilitated."

He said he hoped the stabilisation phase would be consolidated within a week and that people would get back to their normal lives within two to three months.

Return to normal

But already in some of the relief camps, there are signs that life is returning to normal. Families have started re-building their mud houses with the support of government-issued relief packages.

However, in some areas, victims have criticised the government for its slow response to the disaster, saying for example that it had not supplied enough food. Noor Mohsin, who lives in Turbat, said that the conditions remained bad because people had not been "fully-provided with basic necessities".

Many have compared the damage from the floods to the destruction wreaked by the earthquake which shook the country in October 2005, killing tens of thousands, but they hope that rehabilitation efforts this time will be more successful and take place as quickly as possible.