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Devastating Pakistan floods now threaten food crisis
Reuters - August 4, 2010
Faris Ali, Nowshera, Pakistan – Pakistanis scoured towns for food on Wednesday, with some areas facing life-threatening shortages after floods which have killed 1,400 people and highlighted the fragile leadership of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Ethnic violence raging in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi is also piling pressure on the government, widely criticized for its handling of the floods in the northwest, the worst in 80 years, that have devastated the lives of more than three million people.
Zardari left for Europe earlier this week on state visits.
It's too early to gauge the economic cost but they are likely to be staggering. Pakistan is heavily dependent on foreign aid and its civilian governments have a poor history of managing crises, leaving the powerful military to step in.
"People have lost their food stocks. The markets are not up and running. Shops have collapsed. People are definitely in the greatest need of food," said WFP spokesman Amjad Jamal.
"That's what we fear. The need to rush to those areas which have been cut off for the past week to provide life-saving food."
In Nowshera, one of the worst-hit areas, former army officer Mohammad Yaseen and other villagers picked through rubble hoping to find food and a few of their belongings. People washed clothes waist deep in water. Rugs hung from the legs of water towers as dozens of bloated buffalo carcasses lay in muddy streets.
"After two days, a helicopter came and dropped some bottles of water and packets of biscuits but nobody tried to evacuate us," he said. "After four days, boats came but the water level had receded and there was no point in leaving the house."
His village of Pashtun Gari was home to about 2,500 families who made their living from dairy farming and wheat harvesting.
Now the village and his house are steeped in mud and the stench of burst sewage lines and dead cows permeates the air.
Karachi bloodshed
About 1,500 miles away in Pakistan's biggest city and commercial hub Karachi in the south, authorities are trying to contain violence, a constant problem in Pakistan, where the US wants stability so that its ally can help ease a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
More than a dozen people were killed overnight, deepening fears of more turmoil in Karachi after the assassination of a member of the dominant political party in the city on Monday. Sixty-two people have been killed since then.
The government blamed Taliban insurgents, and a banned sectarian militant group, for the slaying of Raza Haider.
There is little time to tackle militancy at the moment.
Pakistan's mainstay agriculture industry has been hit by the floods. Thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed in the Punjab agricultural heartland alone.
"We have sent a request to the government and we are getting six helicopters from them and we will be doing air drops to the areas which are cut off," WFP's Jamal told Reuters by telephone.
"A lot of agriculture-based activities have gone under water. So people may not be able to harvest or even sow their crops."
Floods, which started a week ago, are likely to spread as more rains are expected. A breakout of water-borne diseases such as cholera would pose new risks.
Before the waters began raging, more than a million people were already forced from their homes in the northwest because of fighting between the army and Taliban militants.
Crises-beset Zardari
The disaster has also, once again, called into question the leadership of Zardari, already hampered by problems ranging from the Taliban, to poverty to chronic power cuts.
His current priority appears to be overseas diplomacy.
Zardari and British Prime Minister David Cameron will this week try to repair relations after openly disagreeing over Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism.
Adding to the pressure at home, Islamist charities, some tied to militant groups allied with the Taliban and al Qaeda, are competing with the government to provide aid to the affected flood areas, possibly boosting their credibility.
Pakistani civilians who resettled after being forced to flee fighting in the northwest now face fresh uncertainty. Some had just gone back, hoping to start a new life. Now they must move once again.
"First it was the Taliban, now it's mother nature." said Nawab Ali, 45, who is from Swat Valley.
(Additional reporting by Asim Tanveer, Augustine Anthony and Kamran Haider in Islamabad and Junaid Khan in Swat; reporting and writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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