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Massive floods across Pakistan | Thousands Killed

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PM befooled by fake medical camp in Mianwali

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MIANWALI: Prime Minister Gilani was magnificently befooled in Mianwali when he visited a medical relief camp, which was amazingly set up moments before his arrival by local administration within premises of a private school, Geo News revealed.

The medical camp had been set up in emergency some minutes before PM arrived on a visit while some persons were also made fabricated patients to appear being treated at relief camp.

Authorities showed blind-to-fact PM Gilani as if the medical camp was functioning for long time in the area. However, no sooner did poor PM Gilani depart than there was no medical relief camp to be found in the area.

After reviewing the damage and displacement wreaked by floods in the area, PM was informed of the medical relief camp established for provision of medical aid for affectees and also he was insisted to visit camp.

On his arrival at camp, PM, the chief of country, was introduced persons lying on the beds being flood efectees, whom innocent PM Gilani not only granted compensation cheques costing Rs.5000 each but also inquired after their wellbeing.

However in reality, there are only an empty school, chairs, desks and school employees now in replacement of medical staff, patients and a medical relief camp.
 
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Floods surge into Pak's Sindh province, 3 lakh evacuated

KARACHI: Pakistan's worst floods in 80 years surged into southern Sindh province today amidst criticism over failing to provide speedy relief to the 4.5 million people affected by the deluge, even as about 300,000 have been evacuated along the swollen Indus river.

After causing widespread devastation in the north western and central parts of Pakistan, the floods entered Sindh. Officials said a flow of 780,000 cusecs of water had been recorded at the Guddu Barrage and the level is expected to rise to 900,000 cusecs soon.

Flood waters also entered Ghotki and Kashmore districts in Sindh and were rising, officials said.

Army and navy units are already on high alert in these areas to carry out rescue and relief operations and over 300,000 people have been evacuated from areas near the Indus river basin.

The number of people affected by floods across the country today rose to an estimated 4.5 million, officials at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Islamabad said.

Over 1,500 people have been killed by the floods, which also washed away livestock and inundated thousands of acres of crops.

The floods in Punjab and Sindh were slightly exacerbated by continuing monsoon rains. Though floods abated in Mianwanli, Bhakkar and Layyah districts, conditions were worse in Dera Ghazi Khan and Muzaffargarh districts, said Punjab Relief Commissioner Ikhlaq Ahmad Tarar.

"Around 90 people have died due to the rains and floods. Some 1.4 million people have been displaced in Punjab," Tarar said. A total of 1.42 million acres of crops and nearly 1,350 villages have been destroyed in flood- affected areas of Punjab.

The embankment of a canal broke at Mithan Kot and flood waters entered the city. The evacuation of people had begun and the administration had directed the residents of low-lying areas to move to safer places.

Authorities had also issued a warning at Chachara Sharif in Rajanpur as there was heavy pressure of water at an embankment, Tarar said.

In the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, which has borne the brunt of Pakistan's worst floods since 1929, the level of most rivers began receding today, giving a fillip to relief activities.

A spokesman for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority said that the level of all rivers - except the Kabul river and the Indus river - was normal.
 
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Though i am not providing any help monitarily to the needy, i pray to the god may he help them.
 
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Authorities showed blind-to-fact PM Gilani as if the medical camp was functioning for long time in the area. However, no sooner did poor PM Gilani depart than there was no medical relief camp to be found in the area.

For a moment ignoring the enourmity of these floods, it is always a relief to hear a politician getting fooled instead of a politician fooling others!
 
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Zardari's Katrina
by Fatima Bhutto.


This week, Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, boarded a private Gulfstream Jet along with his family and his hundreds-large entourage to visit the European countries included on the president's grand tour. Yesterday, Zardari -- who was married to my aunt, the late Benazir Bhutto, before her 2007 murder -- landed in London. As soon as the plane touched down, the president and his Very Important coterie were chauffeured in a dozen luxury vehicles to a five-star hotel where the president will be staying in a £7,000 ($11,160) per night Royal Suite.


His welcome, however, was less than royal. On the drive to the hotel, protesters held placards reading "Zardari King of Thieves," "Zardari 100% Pure Corruption," and "GO Zardari GO." While Zardari was schmoozing with his cronies in luxe London hotels, Pakistan was reeling from the deadliest floods to hit the country in 80 years. In short, it looks like Zardari's Katrina.

More than 3 million people in the northwestern region of Pakistan have now been affected by the floods. Parts of the north are facing terminal food shortages even as they are inaccessible to relief workers. The U.N. World Food Program says that 1.8 million will urgently need something to eat in coming weeks. The death toll has risen steadily in recent days to more than 1,400 people. About another million have lost their homes.

The news is also unlikely to get any better: Officials now say that the waters are expected to hit Punjab and Sindh provinces, Pakistan's food-producing regions. New flood warnings are still being issued, and the country is bracing for further monsoon downpours.

Zardari takes a lot of overseas trips -- so many that one local TV pundit estimated somewhat anecdotally last year that Richard Holbrooke, U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy to the "AfPak" region, had spent more time in Pakistan than Zardari had recently. But the timing of this particular visit has angered not only his subjects but also his hosts. Two prominent Asian Britons refused to meet the visiting head of state. Khalid Mahmood, a member of parliament, vigorously condemned Zardari's decision to visit London. "A lot of people are dying," he told the press. "He should be [in Pakistan] to try to support the people, not swanning around in the UK and France." Lord Ahmed, a labor MP, continued that Zardari had a responsibility to be "looking after people, not [be] over here."

Yet the protests seem to have fallen on deaf ears -- which really shouldn't surprise anyone who has watched the Zardari government in action. The floods are just the latest, most tragic example of how inept the Pakistani state truly is. The inundation was predictable; Pakistan suffers monsoon rains every year at exactly the same time. But in a country -- and with a president -- so endemically corrupt, dealing with the entirely preventable, whether terrorism or natural disasters, has become impossible. There is simply no will, and more importantly no money, to spend on the Pakistani people. The country's coffers are constantly being diverted to more pressing programs -- or pockets, for that matter. Before he came to office, Zardari was facing corruption charges in Switzerland, Spain, and Britain. (As president, he withdrew Pakistan's cooperation with the latter two countries' courts; his presidential immunity prevented a Swiss case from re-opening.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/04/zardaris_katrina

Fatima Bhutto writes for the New Statesman and the Daily Beast. Her book Songs of Blood and Sword will be published by Nation Books in September. She is a niece of Benazir Bhutto, who was married to Asif Ali Zardari
 
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Afridi to raise funds for flood victims



Thursday, August 05, 2010
By our correspondent

KARACHI: Shahid Afridi will fly out for Dubai on Thursday (today) to raise funds for the victims of the worst floods Pakistan has seen in its 63-year history.

Afridi, Pakistan’s ODI and Twenty20 captain, is hoping to raise millions of rupees during his two-day stay in the United Arab Emirates.

“Our countrymen are once again going through a very, very difficult time and it’s our responsibility to help them as much as we can,” Afridi told ‘The News’ on Wednesday.

“Millions in different parts of the country like Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, Punjab and Sindh are in a desperate situation and need immediate help,” he added.

The floods that have inundated north-western Pakistan since last week has by now claimed over 1,400 lives and stranded, displaced or otherwise affected another 3.2 million.

Afridi and several other Pakistani sportsmen also raised substantial funds for the victims of the 2005 earthquake.
 
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Well, I can't digest the quoted text below as I had a conversation with my younger brother a while ago who just returned from Upper Dir, stucked there for over 3 days.

The Bridge (linking Lower Dir to Upper Dir area) has been destroyed by heavy floods. According to my brother, the Army personnel there were so exhausted and devastated of the Govt policies in dealing with the flood - they had clear cut instructions from the Govt. not to build the bridge. According to that Army person, the Army can built this bridge in 35mins even the Americans have offered them to build it - keeeping in mind, it took 5 hours waiting in Queue for my brother to cross the temporary wooden made bridge. Only two persons are allowed to cross the bridge at once as it cannot bear heavy load and there were people waiting in 5km long queue on both sides.

Why would they do that, I'm totally speechless.
 
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Well, I can't digest the quoted text below as I had a conversation with my younger brother a while ago who just returned from Upper Dir, stucked there for over 3 days.



Why would they do that, I'm totally speechless.

Well one of the reasons can be .

It is expected to rain heavily again(as predicted by met dept)..and if flash floods occour again then these structures(bridges) which are already a scarce resource to find..can be swept away ..just like original bridges.
 
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I would prefer Afridi to run this country; honestly.......

in fact, if my memory serves me correct he went through a lot of sweat and effort to do what he could to raise money and relief effort for Swati IDPs


we do have people in this country who genuinely do give a damn.....then you have the ''apathetics'' who say ''why we should do anything, somebody else will go help those poor people''


in fairness to the Americans, they are doing a lot. In fact, according to somebody I spoke to he said that U.S. is not even putting their flags on the relief goods being donated because they dont want to politicise the issue. They want the aid to come in without distractions.
 
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We had some agricultural land near Head-Tareemoo in Jhang. Every year or so in flood season, "ARMY" men would come there & drill holes & implant explosives in the mud-dam banking the river chanab... Then they'll wait for water level to reach threshold & if water did reach dangerous level to be a threat to head tareemoo, they would announce that flood is coming & would explode the mud-banks right behind where we had our farm...

We used to have floods almost every other year or so... but it was NOT the water overflowing the banks,,, it was water released to save Taremoo-Head-Works.


Now what i think of these floods is that after heavy rainfalls,, river banks had to be broken to save the Tarbela Dam & Chashma Barrage etc from strong river currents that resulted from those rains...
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Kalabagh Dam would have had NO role what so ever in recent floods,,, So this incompetent-knucklehead is talking rubbish...
Till the time we have azzholes like him, WE all deserve to drown..!

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Flooding in Pakistan : Natural Hazards

Pakistan Floods - Specialized sensor on NASA satellite reveals a city awash in flood water

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acquired August 4, 2010

Though many areas in northwest Pakistan were bracing for heavy rain and additional flash flooding on August 4, 2010, the city of Kheshgi, in northwest Pakistan, had clear skies. This image, taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite reveals a city awash in flood water.

Thick with mud, the Kabul River is pale green in this false color image. Clearer water is dark blue. The river flows through its usual channel, but in places, water seeps over the channel and across the landscape. The buildings and roads of Kheshgi are silver. Spots of turquoise blue—shallow, muddy water or water-logged ground—covers several sections of the city.

On the south side of the Kabul River, water flows down the hills, washing over neighborhoods. The bare ground in the hills is brown and tan. Plant-covered land, red in this image, is divided into long, narrow rectangles, pointing to agriculture. Geometric shapes under the water near the river are probably submerged fields of crops. Thousands of acres of crops had been lost in floods throughout Pakistan, said the United Nations.

Kheshgi is in the Nowshera district in the Khyber Pakhutnkhwa province. As of August 2, Khyber Pakhutnkhwa was the hardest hit province in Pakistan, said the United Nations, and Nowshera was the most impacted district in the province. Nowshera reported 500,000 people displaced with 161 dead, said the Government of Khuber Pakhtunkhwa.

The floods affected communities throughout Pakistan. More than 1,100 people had died, 15,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and at least one million people were in need of emergency assistance throughout Pakistan, said the United Nations on August 2. The floods occurred as unusually heavy monsoon rains fell over Pakistan.

LARGE IMAGE:

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the Arab people Felt very sad about what happened to their brothers in Pakistan . . And began fund-raising campaigns to send aid to Pakistan . . the Efforts were on the official level and at the level of charitable and religious institutions:

Saudi Arabia:
Saudi Arabia start airlifting relief supplies for Pakistan’s flood victims on Wednesday, an official statement said on Tuesday. The supplies were ordered by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to alleviate the suffering of flood victims.
“The Saudi Royal Air Force will establish an air bridge to Islamabad to transport the relief supplies,” the statement said. The Saudi Finance Ministry has already arranged large amounts of foodstuffs, medicine, blankets and tents for the flood victims.
“We are coordinating with UN organizations to distribute humanitarian and emergency relief supplies worth $100 million, which the Kingdom had earlier allocated to support victims of natural calamities in Pakistan,” the statement said.
Pakistan’s worst floods have hit more than three million people so far and the death toll has climbed over 1,400, a spokesman for the U.N. Children's Fund said on Tuesday. Abdul Sami Malik said 1.3 million people were severely affected by the floods in the northwest.
Pakistani authorities are struggling to help victims of the flooding, many of whom have lost their homes and livelihood and say they had not received any official warnings that raging waters were heading their way.

UAE:
The President, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan ordered urgent delivery of relief materials to shelter displaced people in the flood hit areas of Pakistan
This came as General Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, received here on Sunday Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari, who made a short visit to the UAE en route to Europe. Shaikh Mohammed conveyed Shaikh Khalifa’s condolences on the victims of floods.
Gen. Shaikh Mohammed expressed his sympathy with the families of the victims and reiterated UAE’s support to Pakistan in these difficult times.
The meeting was attended by National Security Advisor Shaikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan.
President Zardari expressed appreciation to Shaikh Khalifa and Gen. Shaikh Mohammed and praised the UAE’s unlimited support and efforts to alleviate suffering of the people affected by the floods. The meeting also discussed bilateral relations and ways to enhance them, as well as regional developments and issues of mutual of interest. Over 1,000 people have been killed and 500,000 displaced by the floods in Pakistan — the worst in the country since 1929.

Qatar:
Doha: In collaboration with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) has announced a plan to provide primary assistance to the victims of the floods in North-West Pakistan, for which it has raised QR1.5m.
The first phase of Qatar Red Crescent’s aid will focus on bringing relief by providing basic needs in terms of tents, kitchen tools, food, water and personal health kits. A statement issued here said sending medical teams will also be part of the aid plan.
The second phase will be allocated to repair the damaged houses in the affected region, which needs a large intervention by humanitarian and civil society organisations, QRC said.
QRC’s team of volunteers and doctors have been in Pakistan since the 2004 earthquake. They spent about four years to provide medical care and help to the earthquake victims.
Meanwhile, the death toll from Pakistan’s worst floods in living memory topped 1,100 yesterday as outbreaks of water-borne disease emerged and penniless survivors sought refuge from the raging ********. More than 1.5 million people have been affected by monsoon rains, flash floods and landslides in the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and at least another 47 have died in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, officials said. Thousands of homes and vast swathes of farmland have been destroyed in the region

Jordan:
King Abdullah of Jordan has expressed his heartfelt condolences and sympathies for the people who lost their lives and the families who were affected in the disastrous floods in Pakistan.
In a message, the king prayed Almighty Allah to rest the departed souls in eternal peace and bestow courage and patience on affected people to bear the tragedy, The king has given orders for the processing of military aircraft to deliver aid.

Kuwait:
Secretary-General of the Kuwait Joint Relief Committee Faisal Al-Jeeran said on Monday that a delegation from the Committee will travel next Thursday to Pakistan for the distribution of relief assistance and basic needs for victims and displaced persons as a result of floods that swept northwestern Pakistan.
Al-Jeeran told KUNA that the Committee at its meeting, headed by Ahmed Saad Al-Jasser, acting Chairman of the Committee, decided to send a delegation to Pakistan for the distribution of relief supplies to flood-stricken people through coordination with the charge d’affaires at the Embassy of the State of Kuwait to Islamabad, Falah Al-Mutairi in order to facilitate the task of the delegation

Allah Almighty, Most Merciful we call you to Reduced calamities for our brothers in Pakistan . . Amin
 
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any idea how much loss has occured from this flooding? i know its increasing day n night but any official figure released by the Government of Pakistan?
 
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any idea how much loss has occured from this flooding? i know its increasing day n night but any official figure released by the Government of Pakistan?

at least 1,400-1,500 killed. 4 million displaced.

how many injured, how much property/asset/infrastructure damage ---there will need to be an assesment. But i'm sure the number will be large; and a huge burden on our already damaged economy.


its a disaster of staggering proportions --even for a developed country, let alone a country like Pakistan which is already facing much difficulties
 
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