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Pakistan evacuates half-a-million flood victims

Agence France Presse - August 5, 2010

Hasan Mansoor, Durrani Mehar, Pakistan – Pakistan battled to contain flooding in its rich agricultural south, evacuating half a million people from at-risk areas as the UN warned Friday of the "daunting" scale of the crisis.

The nearly two-week-old disaster has affected 4.5 million across the largely impoverished country hard hit by Taliban-linked violence, after floods washed away entire villages and killed at least 1,600, according to UN estimates.

Authorities in the densely populated southern province of Sindh were busy evacuating villagers, warning that major floods in the next 48 hours threatened hundreds of communities in the fertile basin along the swollen Indus river.

"It is a real crisis all over the country. It is unprecedented floods in our history," military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.

"We do not have the kind of resources which really warrant to cope with a situation like this and I think it is needed that the international community should come to our help."

Bedraggled women, children and elderly men in shabby clothes were deposited on the banks by rescue boats criss-crossing a giant lake dotted by tree tops in the village of Durrani Mehar in northern Sindh.

The meteorological office issued a red alert overnight, warning of an "imminent" and "extreme" flood threat to Sindh, especially along the Indus, as flooding spread to Indian-held Kashmir, where nearly 90 people have now died.

"The scale of the needs is absolutely daunting," said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "At least 11 districts are at risk of flooding in Sindh, where more than 500,000 people have been relocated to safer places and evacuation still continues," said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

More than 252,000 homes are thought to have been damaged or destroyed across Pakistan, and 1.38 million acres (558,000 hectares) of crop land flooded, and it could take weeks before electricity is fully restored.

"Our cattle died and the cotton crop destroyed," said Mohammad Bakhsh, 50, a resident of Qasim Ghot village.

"I've got calls on my mobile saying 20 to 25 children from our family are stranded in the village and are holding on to tree branches.

"We are begging the authorities to rescue them. Two of my children have drowned and we don't know where they are," Bakhsh said.

The flooding has threatened electricity generation plants, forcing units to shut down in a country suffering from a crippling energy crisis.

Only three of 12 units are now functioning at the 1,200-megawatt Kot Addu Power Company plant in the central province of Punjab, the director general of the state-owned Pakistan Electric Power Co, Mohammad Khalid, told AFP.

Khalid said three grid stations in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were also shut down, and two private plants closed.

Survivors lashed out at authorities for failing to come to their rescue and provide better relief, piling pressure on a cash-strapped administration straining to contain Taliban violence and an economic crisis.

"We have nothing. I have no food and water to give my children. We desperately need help," Janat Bibi, a 30-year-old mother of eight told AFP. Her husband Khadim Mirani was missing in the flood.

Particular scorn has been heaped on the unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari for pressing ahead with a visit to Europe at the height of the disaster.

He was to hold showdown talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday, overshadowed by Cameron's claims that Pakistan is secretly backing violent extremists while publicly denouncing terrorism.

Zardari has hit back at the allegations, citing the high price paid by Pakistan in its fight against militants, with 3,574 people killed in suicide and bomb attacks in Pakistan over the last three years.

He insisted Islamabad is committed to fighting militants in the region.

On Thursday, the US State Department said Al-Qaeda's core in Pakistan is the "most formidable" terror group threatening the United States.

Islamic charities, some with suspected links to extremist militants, have been stepping into the breach on the ground, as international aid steps up but aid workers are struggling to reach all those affected.

British charities grouped to launch an urgent appeal on TV and radio through the Disasters Emergency Committee. The United States has pledged a total of 35 million dollars in aid, with military helicopter relief missions travelling into the worst-hit regions.

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