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Massive floods across Pakistan | Thousands Killed

Hoping India will send aid in asap also, in times of need all differences must be set aside and only the well being of people should be kept in mind.
 
it is, and i agree with you....


but equally of bad taste (if not more) is our ''leader'' --perish the thought for a few seconds that i am calling this 'man' a leader -- GROOMING his son to somehow lead the country.

I wonder how large his delegation is, and the cost of this trip?


Look, i give credit where its due. I wont deny that there are ministries with people inside who are actively taking a role. But at the same time, is it always Army Engineering/medical corps that needs to go into these areas where the central govt. fails to do so?


do they just have this mentality that ''hey, somebody else will help them; so we dont need to worry to much about it''


is this what they think?? is this their mental thought process?












p.s. Ironic that Zardari should be in Paris, the ''city of lights'' while there is no electricity; while entire villages have been wiped out.

it's one thing to see pictures of the devastation...it's another thing to be on the ground and see face to face what has happened
 
Hoping India will send aid in asap also, in times of need all differences must be set aside and only the well being of people should be kept in mind.

Agree, i already have hundreds of emails from my friends from India to Jerusalem asking how to donate. It is in times of trials and tribulation that the human spirit shines with all its illuminating glory.

If we could only be like this all the time.... I guess that would be to ectopic.
 
it is, and i agree with you....


but equally of bad taste (if not more) is our ''leader'' --perish the thought for a few seconds that i am calling this 'man' a leader -- GROOMING his son to somehow lead the country.

I wonder how large his delegation is, and the cost of this trip?


Look, i give credit where its due. I wont deny that there are ministries with people inside who are actively taking a role. But at the same time, is it always Army Engineering/medical corps that needs to go into these areas where the central govt. fails to do so?


do they just have this mentality that ''hey, somebody else will help them; so we dont need to worry to much about it''


is this what they think?? is this their mental thought process?












p.s. Ironic that Zardari should be in Paris, the ''city of lights'' while there is no electricity; while entire villages have been wiped out.

it's one thing to see pictures of the devastation...it's another thing to be on the ground and see face to face what has happened

He is shameless and shame-proof.

i wish to see this familycracy drowned forever
 
it is, and i agree with you....


but equally of bad taste (if not more) is our ''leader'' --perish the thought for a few seconds that i am calling this 'man' a leader -- GROOMING his son to somehow lead the country.

I wonder how large his delegation is, and the cost of this trip?


Look, i give credit where its due. I wont deny that there are ministries with people inside who are actively taking a role. But at the same time, is it always Army Engineering/medical corps that needs to go into these areas where the central govt. fails to do so?


do they just have this mentality that ''hey, somebody else will help them; so we dont need to worry to much about it''


is this what they think?? is this their mental thought process?












p.s. Ironic that Zardari should be in Paris, the ''city of lights'' while there is no electricity; while entire villages have been wiped out.

it's one thing to see pictures of the devastation...it's another thing to be on the ground and see face to face what has happened

That's what you call democracy my friend, its a cruel system but it works in the long run. Zardari is milking the cow while he has a chance but im sure the people of Pakistan will rise to the occasion and take the country to a better direction. Have faith, the system is slow but it works.
 
Agree, i already have hundreds of emails from my friends from India to Jerusalem asking how to donate. It is in times of trials and tribulation that the human spirit shines with all its illuminating glory.

If we could only be like this all the time.... I guess that would be to ectopic.

yes i will also donate on Thursday once I finish come imp work, no matter how many difference we have or how much we hate each other, India and Pakistan need to be there for each other. Our differences will only allow others to take advantage and play the divide and rule policy with us. We share the same values and principles and im sure with time Ishallah we will be brothers once again.
 
here in the UK people are donating everywhere, hope they gather good amount of money like the last time(earthquake).
 
I saw something in the guardian, not sure if it is the right place to post:

The busy roadside aid station for flood victims seemed ordinary enough. Huge pots were lined up to distribute cooked food to the hungry. An ambulance, now no longer needed to ferry the injured, was being loaded up with bundles of second-hand clothing to be given away. But rather than being run by a humanitarian agency or government officials, the aid station on the outskirts of Charsadda, a town in the north-west that has seen some of the worst flooding in Pakistan, was set up by a group alleged to be international terrorists.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a hardline Islamist organisation thought to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the 2008 assault on Mumbai, said it had 2,000 members working for flood relief across the north-west of the country and down into Punjab province.

With the government overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, the worst flooding in Pakistan in at least 80 years, a gap has opened up for well-organised Islamic groups, mainstream and extremist.

They have been able to win hearts and minds in a region most hit by militancy and the threat of a Taliban takeover. Across the deluged north-west, locals complained bitterly that government help was almost entirely absent.

The UN said today that the flooding, caused by monsoon rain, has now affected 3 million people, with the death toll put at around 1,500 by the provincial government.

The World Food Programme estimated 1.8 million to be in urgent need of water, food and shelter. An outbreak of water-borne diseases such as cholera is now feared.

In the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, homes, businesses and crops have been washed away. Roads and electricity networks have collapsed, with 91 bridges in the province and 10,000 power lines ripped down by the raging waters. Rising water levels have threatened Pakistan's third-largest dam, the Warsak, prompting relief officials to ask residents in the northern outskirts of Peshawar to leave their homes. The floods are now reaching further south in the Punjab province, as the waters surge down country.

At the aid station Hajji Makbool Shah, a 55-year-old flood volunteer, said he was a member of Jamaat-ud-Dawa but distribution was under the Falah-e-Insaniyat arm of the organisation.

"If the government were doing this work, there would be no need for us," he said. "When the floods came, we carried people out on our shoulders, to our own ambulances. Where were the government ambulances?"

Yaya Mujahid, spokesman for JuD, said the group was working with Falah-e-Insaniyat. "We're present to help in all the places where the floodwaters have gone," said Mujahid.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was banned in Pakistan in 2002, after which the group used Jamaat-ud-Dawa as its name – though it claims to be unrelated to LeT. When David Cameron controversially last week accused Pakistan of "exporting terror", Jamaat-ud-Dawa would be one of the groups foremost in his mind. It exists in a legally ambiguous status in Pakistan.

Following huge international pressure in the aftermath of the Mumbai attack, in which more than 160 people were killed, and the UN passing a resolution proscribing the JuD, Pakistan outlawed the outfit. However, a subsequent court challenge by the group's leader, Hafiz Saeed, successfully argued that no actual legal order had been passed. JuD was also active in the aid effort after the massive 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan, even winning international praise for its work, and also in caring for those displaced from the Swat valley last year when the army mounted an operation to recapture the area from the Taliban.

Just down the road from the JuD aid station, another Islamic group, Al-Khidmat Foundation, this one perfectly legal, was housing around 380 families left destitute by the floods, in two private school buildings. Al-Khidmat is part of a mainstream but fundamentalist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami.

"The government is paralysed," said Javed Khan, head of the local branch of Al-Khidmat. "The whole province is in trouble and the authorities are absent."

Inside the school, Naila Fazli Rabi, an 18-year-old woman who had been given shelter there, said the water had been about 12ft high and had swept her family home away in the nearby village of Arbab Korna.

"Al-Khidmat is helping us, the government has given us nothing," said Rabi. "We had spent 3m rupees (£23,000) on the house. Now we cannot even dream of rebuilding it. I don't even have 30 rupees."

A senior Charsadda administration official, Kamran Rehman Khan, said that around 500,000 people had been affected by the flooding in his district alone, out of a population of 1.7 million.

He said he was unaware of the activities of Falah-e-Insaniyat or Jamaat-ud-Dawa in the area. "The magnitude of the problem is such that any government in the world would struggle to cope with it," said Khan. "We were not prepared for such a big disaster."

The British colonial government had built a local headworks back in the early 1920s, he said, that could hold 174,000 cusecs of water, but 400,000 cusecs had come gushing down, blowing away its gates. "We had banked on British engineering, designed to cope with the worst flood situation, but it failed us," said Khan.
 
Americans ‘Texting’ To Support Pakistan Flood Relief

Americans ?Texting? To Support Pakistan Flood Relief | Farzana Shah

Islamabad, – Moved by news of the devastating floods in Pakistan, Americans have begun raising money for emergency relief in Pakistan using the latest communications technologies. By texting the word SWAT to telephone number 50555, cellular phone users will be able to donate $10 to help flood victims in Pakistan through the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)

An estimated 3 million people have been affected by the flooding. UNHCR emergency response teams are distributing tents, relief supplies, and humanitarian assistance to an estimated 200,000 people displaced by the recent flooding.

In Balochistan, UNHCR is delivering 4,000 tents, 2,700 plastic sheets, 2,200 kitchen sets, and 4,000 plastic mats to the hardest hit areas. The organization is also active in Kyber Pakhtunkhwa, where it has distributed 3,000 tents in Nowshera District.–PR

Americans ?Texting? To Support Pakistan Flood Relief | Farzana Shah
 
U.S. Air Force, Army Help With Pakistan Flood Relief

As if northern Pakistan hasn’t suffered enough during the rise of the Pakistani Taliban over the last several years, the mass flooding that began late last week provided a new level of devastation. UNICEF estimates that 3.2 million Pakistanis have been displaced or otherwise affected. As many as 1500 people have died. Over 25,000 are stranded and in need of help. And on Sunday, the U.S. Air Force got to work providing some of that aid.

Taking off from Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, a C-130 from the 455th Expeditionary Air Wing delivered 8,000 halal meals to Islamabad on Sunday. A C-17 from the 385th Expeditionary Air Group stocked with another 44,000 meals arrived soon after. (Full disclosure: the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command is helping me get to Afghanistan, where I’ll check out some of its missions there.) The planes represent the first wave of a $10 million U.S. effort to help with flood relief.

Since Sunday, according to the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO command in Afghanistan, the U.S. has delivered 189,000 halal meals in total. Another 200,000 are scheduled to be delivered within the next 24 hours. That’s a start, but according to the United Nations, 1.8 million people in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, the area formerly known as the Northwest Frontier Province and the hardest hit by the flood, are in need of food assistance.

Food aid won’t be all that’s needed. The United Nations is warning of waterborne diseases like diarrhea further afflicting flood victims, so the World Health Organization is dispensing needed medicines. And the U.S. embassy in Pakistan lists some other U.S. assets on hand or soon-to-be-on-hand to assist: four Zodiac inflatable power boats, two water filtration units and 12 pre-fabricated steel bridges to replace washed out overpasses in Peshawar and Kurram.

The Army’s set to help as well. On Wednesday, six Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division are scheduled to leave from Ghazi Airbase, carrying about 100 U.S. military personnel. It won’t be the first time U.S. military personnel will have arrived on the ground in Pakistan, despite strong local sensibilities against a U.S. presence in Pakistan.



U.S. Air Force, Army Help With Pakistan Flood Relief | Danger Room | Wired.com
 
He is shameless and shame-proof.

i wish to see this familycracy drowned forever

"No one, but a traitor does forget his love and land
Damn upon those who ditch their land" - Bulley Shah
 
U.S. helping Pakistan deal with floods

* U.S. offers initial $10 million in aid

* U.S. says committed to help Pakistan

* Plan to send in additional helicopters (Adds USAID, State Department comment, more details)

WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama expressed condolences to flood-ravaged Pakistan on Tuesday as the United States increased humanitarian aid to help deal with the disaster which has killed more than 1,400 people.

"The president is being kept fully informed on the evolving situation," said Mike Hammer, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

"Our relationship with Pakistan goes far beyond our shared commitment to fight extremists," said Hammer.

The United States and Pakistan are allies fighting extremists in neighboring Afghanistan but Washington is also keen to show it cares about more than just security concerns.

Pakistan's civilian government has been criticized at home for its response to the disaster, which has ravaged the northwest and displaced more than a million people.

The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Rajiv Shah, said the United States had rushed in food, clean water and rescue supplies as part of an initial $10 million pledge for immediate assistance.

"We stand by the people of Pakistan in their time of need and are working with the Pakistani government to learn what assistance we can best provide," said Shah.

The United States has delivered more than 315,000 halal meals from stocks in neighboring Afghanistan and an additional 110,000 meals were expected to be delivered later on Tuesday.

Other assistance included airlifting two mobile water treatment units as well 12 prefabricated bridges and four rescue boats, USAID said.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the defense department had authorized the deployment of four Chinook and two Black Hawk helicopters from Afghanistan but poor weather had so far delayed their arrival.

U.S. helicopters have been used to airlift 733 people to safety, the State Department said, and helped transport tons of food to flood victims.

Americans are also contributing to flood relief for Pakistan by texting the word "SWAT" to the number 50555, said the State Department. Each text results in a $10 donation to the U.N.'s Pakistan Flood Relief Effort to provide tents and emergency aid to displaced families.

Reuters AlertNet - U.S. helping Pakistan deal with floods
 
MAJUKY FAQIRABAD : Pakistan risked a public health disaster on Tuesday with 3.2 million people hit by the worst floods in generations as anger grew among survivors complaining they have been abandoned by the government.

Bedraggled survivors walked on foot, with luggage stacked on donkey carts or crammed into cars, trying to reach safer ground as heavy rains again lashed the northwest, exacerbating the misery of hundreds of thousands.

Families sleeping rough spent an anxious night, some worried about looters and firing intermittent bursts of gunfire to head off any possible trouble in the devastated village of Majuky Faqirabad, witnesses said.

Most of the homes in the village were destroyed. The rest lay in shambles with belongings littered under the open skies. Villagers said 10 bodies had been recovered from the waters but that at least 100 people were still missing.

Aid workers, the government and the military say they are battling to reach affected communities, but anger grew among survivors over the enormity of their plight as President Asif Ali Zardari pressed on with a visit to Europe.

"Two young girls in my immediate neighbourhood drowned in the flood waters," said Sher Khan, 40.

"Zardari should visit the flood-hit areas and take steps for welfare of the stranded people instead of taking joy rides to France and UK."

"We have been cut off from the rest of the country for the last five days," said Muhammad Tariq, 37, a school teacher told AFP from Bahrain district.

"The army and local administration repeatedly assured us that they would airlift us to Peshawar but nothing of the sort has happened yet."

As concerns grew of a potential public health disaster, the death toll was expected to rise further on Tuesday.

The local government in Khyber Pakhtunkwa province has said up to 1,500 people died and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) put the figure at 1,400.

"Providing clean water and sanitation is an absolute priority if we are to avert a public health disaster," said Ateeb Siddiqui, director of operations with the Pakistan Red Crescent Society.

Record rain last week triggered floods and landslides that obliterated entire villages and ruined farmland in one of the country's most impoverished and volatile regions.

The United Nations said clean drinking water and sanitation were urgently needed to stop waterborne diseases spreading after Pakistan's worst floods in 80 years.

UN humanitarian coordinator for Pakistan, Martin Mogwanja, told AFP that discussions were under way with the government to determine whether the crisis warranted a fresh appeal for donor aid.

"The international community is again ready to help Pakistan. They are waiting to see a concrete plan of action by the humanitarian agencies," he said, conceding that there had been some access problems.

"Houses, roads, livestock and fields have been overwhelmed," he said. "This is a serious humanitarian disaster."

Around 3.2 million people have been affected with 1.4 million of them children, said Marco Jimenez Rodriguez, spokesman for UNICEF.

The United Nations said around 980,000 people had lost their homes or been temporarily displaced, and that the figure was likely to rise above a million.

An assessment by the UN World Food Programme in four districts -- Nowshera, Charsadda, Mardan and Peshawar -- found that around 80,000 homes had been destroyed and another 50,000 damaged.

In the city of Peshawar, more than 200 people including women and children queued up near a truck carrying flour, cooking oil and lentils. Other survivors lay their wet bedding out on the roadside, waiting for handouts.

School teacher Aurangzeb Khan said floods had reduced his community to mud. "Don't give us biscuits and juice packs in aid, we need clean drinking water."

Country’s meteorological service has forecast rain of up to 200 millimetres (eight inches) in the next weeks across the northwest, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the central province of Punjab and Sindh in the south.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon pledged aid of up to 10 million dollars for those affected by the crisis, Britain pledged five million pounds (eight million dollars) and South Korea 500,000 dollars worth of emergency relief supplies.

Helicopters sent by Washington have rescued more than 700 people from flood-hit areas, US officials said.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2010
 
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中国空军出动3架伊尔76向巴基斯坦运抗洪物资ÐÂÀËÊ×Ò³ 2010年08月04日 10:41 中国新闻网



资料图:中国空军曾参加玉树救灾行动的伊尔-76运输机
  中新社北京8月4日电记者4日从国防部新闻事务局获悉,由中国政府提供、中国军队筹措的紧急援助巴基斯坦人道主义物资,于当天清晨5时许分别从石家庄和南京机场起飞,前往巴首都伊斯兰堡。

  据悉,这批人道主义物资包括30吨药品和净水设备、1000顶帐篷、50台发电机等,总价值约1000万元人民币。所有物资通过中国空军的三架伊尔-76飞机运往巴基斯坦灾区。

  巴基斯坦西北部开伯尔—普什图省多个地区7月末遭遇81年来最大强度的降雨。截止8月3日联合国儿童基金会的估算,暴雨引发的严重洪灾可能使当地数千人遇难,300万人成为灾民。

  为表达中国政府和人民对巴基斯坦政府和人民的友好情谊,中国政府日前决定向巴基斯坦政府提供紧急人道主义物资援助,帮助巴政府救助灾民。

  在中国政府宣布援助巴基斯坦后,根据国家对外紧急人道主义物资援助应急机制的安排,中国军队立即行动,国防部外事办公室迅速协调,紧急调配物资,在48小时内即完成全部物资的筹措和启运工作。

Chinese Air Force dispatched three IL-76 transport to Pakistan flood supplies ÐÂÀËÊ×Ò³ 2010 年 08 月 04 日 10:41 China News Net



Data Figure: Chinese Air Force has participated in relief operations in Yushu transport aircraft Il -76
China news agency, Beijing, August 4 - 4 from the Defense Department's Bureau of Information Services was informed by the Chinese government, China's military assistance to Pakistan for emergency financing of humanitarian supplies were in the same morning at around 5 pm and from Shijiazhuang, Nanjing Airport, to the Pakistan capital of Islamabad.

It is reported that these 30 tons of humanitarian supplies, including medicines and water purification equipment, 1,000 tents, 50 generators, with a total value of about 10 million yuan. All materials by the Chinese Air Force 3 IL -76 aircraft to Pakistan disaster.

Khyber northwest Pakistan - Pashtun provinces suffered more than the area 7 at the end of 81 years, maximum intensity of rainfall. Ended August 3 UNICEF estimates, rainstorms triggered severe flooding may make a few thousand local people were killed and 300 million people become victims.

To express the Chinese Government and people of Pakistan government and people's friendship, the Chinese Government to the Government of Pakistan has decided to provide emergency humanitarian aid to help the Pakistani government relief victims.

Chinese government announced aid to Pakistan, according to national foreign emergency humanitarian aid to emergency response mechanism, the Chinese military immediate action, the Defense Department's Foreign Affairs Office of the rapid coordination, emergency deployment of materials, within 48 hours to complete the financing of all goods and shipment of work .
 
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