ISLAMABAD // Millions of people in southern Pakistan were bracing yesterday for another monsoon-fed flood surge as an emergency appeal for aid was answered with a US$900 million (Dh3.3bn) pledge from the World Bank. Waters from the first wave of flash floods, which followed massive monsoon storms in north-west Pakistan in late July, were flowing westwards from the city of Sukkur yesterday in southern Sindh province, prompting the provincial government to order the evacuation of residents of Jacobabad, a town bordering Balochistan province.
Two major barrages near Sukkur have thus far survived flows up to 20 per cent higher than their design capacity, but faced another stern test late yesterday from a second flash flood, caused by fresh monsoon rains feeding the Chenab River. The major body of the initial flood was yesterday about to hit the Kotri barrage, the southernmost barrage on the Indus River. Authorities in Sindh said they feared the inundation of parts of Hyderabad, a city of three million people, and Thatta district, where the Indus forms a delta before flowing into the Arabian Sea. Some 400,000 residents were being evacuated yesterday.
The UN says the floods have killed at least 1,600 people and the Pakistani government says water has inundated areas totalling 150,000 square kilometres. They have destroyed or damaged some 724,000 homes, and washing away at least 577,000 hectares of crops. Some 14.1 million Pakistanis had been affected up to Thursday, among them, six million children, the government said. The UN had on Wednesday called for donations of about $460m (Dh1.69 billion) to meet the immediate needs of six million Pakistanis left starving and homeless by the floods.
The UN announced yesterday that Ban ki-Moon, the secretary general, would visit Pakistan today to bolster the appeal. Pakistan received a welcome shot in the arm from the World Bank, which on Thursday "agreed to commit an amount of $900m" towards relief and reconstruction work in affected areas, the ministry of finance said in a statement. The bank also agreed to undertake a "damage and needs assessment" survey of damaged areas, which the government has said it would form the basis of discussions at a conference of donors the Pakistan government plans to call.
The World Bank on Thursday valued Pakistan's crop losses at $1bn. The United States, which sees Pakistan as a key ally in its fight against Taliban insurgents in neighbouring Afghanistan, said on Thursday that it had increased its financial commitment to relief efforts by the UN to $76 million. Mark Toner, a spokesman for the US state department, also announced that the first two of 19 helicopters from the marines and navy had joined humanitarian relief efforts in Pakistan.
They will replace six helicopters sent from Afghanistan that are currently in action in areas of northern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa where the destruction of roads and bridges have prevented the supply of relief goods by road. The US state department, which had previously voiced disappointment at the slow international reaction to the crisis in Pakistan, also hosted a UN briefing in Washington on Thursday for diplomats from 40 countries that, like the US, have special interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Dan Feldman, the US state department's deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said aid pledges from 30 countries, excluding the US, had risen to about $157m. He said John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate committee on foreign relations, would visit Pakistan next week to survey relief operations and raise the American public's awareness about the extent of the flood devastation.
China, Pakistan's closest ally, on Friday announced it was increasing its assistance to Pakistanis in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, which borders China, to $10.3m (Dh 37.8 million). Pakistan's politicians, who have faced widespread criticism for their slow response to the flood crisis and insensitive bickering, also attempted to rise to the challenge on Thursday. The president, Asif Ali Zardari, who returned to Pakistan late on Wednesday after a much-pilloried lengthy visit to Britain and France after the onset of the floods, toured the Sukkur barrage and distributed relief cheques to flood evacuees.
He later met in Islamabad with Yousaf Raza Gilani, the prime minister, and called a meeting of the council of common interests, a constitutional body that will decide on the division of resources for flood relief and reconstruction between the federal and four provincial governments. Mr Gilani also received a telephone call on Thursday from Nawaz Sharif, the national opposition leader and a leading critic of the government's flood response, and the two are scheduled to meet on Sunday to discuss Mr Sharif's unspecified proposals for dealing with the crisis.
However, bad weather continues to affect the UN's relief efforts, while the prime minister was on Thursday forced to hand over a cheque of 50 million rupees (Dh2.14m) to the government of western Balochistan province, after flooded roads blocked the path of aid-laden army trucks. Unicef, the UN children's fund, warned on Thursday that further delays in getting medicines to millions of displaced people could result in a second wave of deaths from diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria and dengue fever.
thussain@thenational.ae
