Pakistan flood crisis raises fears of country's collapse

[CAPTAIN AMERICA]

CNN said today a third of pakistan was underwater, or flooded, thats a little hard to belive. Can any one tell me the extent of the flooding.

 

[Areesh]

And let ME tell YOU a small secret, I didn't write the article, blame him if you do not like what he is saying, not me. I merely came across it on the website (guardian.co.uk) and thought I might post it since it was relevant. Sorry if it offended any of my Pakistani brothers and sisters, I didn't mean to.

Yeah I know and we have been reading such articles and theories since the day Pakistan was created. God knows why these guys can't do anything better for this world and for themselves.

 

[Solomon2]

Pakistan won't collapse, but the millions of people who won't receive either aid or pity from their countrymen will burn in their hearts. It's going to be very ugly.

 

[khanz]

lol another doomsday article these people are proved wrong everytime then funnily enough these so called "experts" seem to disappear when it blows over.

 

[r3alist]

Pakistan won't collapse, but the millions of people who won't receive either aid or pity from their countrymen will burn in their hearts. It's going to be very ugly.

oh, so its the fault of ordinary pakistani's if others are being killed by this natural disaster?

did you chastise yourself with the same moral opprobrium as black africans lay to waste with katrina?

the outpouring has been immense, i would be surprised if any pakistani here who is fairly well off has not done something or knows someone who has done something, but of course you want to paint a picture of the exact opposite, god knows why....

 

[Solomon2]

oh, so its the fault of ordinary pakistani's if others are being killed by this natural disaster?

The flooding is natural. The lack of sufficient aid provided by Pakistanis to their stricken fellows - is that "natural"?

the outpouring has been immense...but of course you want to paint a picture of the exact opposite, god knows why....

Don't you get it? The outpouring has been immense, but the scale of this crisis is ten times worse! Twenty million people - you can't grasp that kind of crowd on a TV report or YouTube video. If one displaced person consumes one pound of aid per day that is ten thousand TONS, the equivalent of 250 tractor-trailer loads that need to be distributed. So can you now see why reports like "We gave a lot, dispatched 13 trucks today from Lahore" make me upset?

 

[Patriot]

So long as the Pakistan Army is there along with Navy and Air Force Pakistan will never collapse.Pakistan Army is always there as a second fall back option.Government Collapse Is not much a big deal at all as our Civil Services keeps working and Army takes over the executive branch.Everything else works just fine.

 

[MilesTogo]

We need to define 'collapse' here. I think people have associated negative conotation to the word where in fact there are possibilities where a collapse might prove better for the people.

 

[akash57]

Yeah I know and we have been reading such articles and theories since the day Pakistan was created. God knows why these guys can't do anything better for this world and for themselves.

Pakistan will never collapse Insha'Allah. It is just going through a tough time and if it can make it through the hardships, then there's not much left to destroy Pakistan, except a nuke maybe LOL (jokes)

But there is a saying that my mom once told me in Bengali that I think applies to Pakistan at this time
"Shona purai purai shona hoé" which roughly means "Gold becomes gold through burning"

 

[Jigs]

The flooding is natural. The lack of sufficient aid provided by Pakistanis to their stricken fellows - is that "natural"?


Don't you get it? The outpouring has been immense, but the scale of this crisis is ten times worse! Twenty million people - you can't grasp that kind of crowd on a TV report or YouTube video. If one displaced person consumes one pound of aid per day that is ten thousand TONS, the equivalent of 250 tractor-trailer loads that need to be distributed. So can you now see why reports like "We gave a lot, dispatched 13 trucks today from Lahore" make me upset?

Yes we get it Soloman the point your trying to make is pakistan does not have the capability to provided the needed aid at this level. Obviously the government is inefficient period. The military is certainly trying though they are trying very hard but the international response has been weak and islamic orgs are filling the gap which can prove dangerous since some have ties to terror orgs.

With all that said let us not forget the lack of response to Katrina it certainly showed that even a super power like the U.S. showed insufficiency to this disaster so just think of how bad Pakistan has it right now.

 

[Hulk]

Some people use the word collapse so easily and still find their article in renound websites. The problem in our region is that we all do lip service but we hardly do anything in reality. Any problem can be dealt with if serious efforts are made by people. The people of Pakistan has lot of money and manpower, if they seriously get their act together neither money nor manpower will be a problem to them. Zardari alone has billions in his pocket.

 

[fatman17]

ROVER’S DIARY: The floods soaked the president’s image —Babar Ayaz

The only way to stop the world from labelling us as a citadel of terrorism is to improve our behaviour. We have to distance ourselves from all such jihadi organisations that are considered as an asset by our national security managers. These groups are actually a great diplomatic liability

It seems that Mr Asif Zardari is not a friend of President Zardari and he is not even the president’s good adviser. At least the recent untimely visit to France and Britain confirm my above observation. His already controversial image has been further soaked — a collateral damage of the flood.

Much before the visit started and the floods swamped Khyber Pakhtunkhwa there was strong opposition to his visit to Britain. The reason given by our chest-thumping patriots was that David Cameron has blamed Pakistan for ‘exporting terrorism’. Cameron made this statement in India, the country that is considered by many as an archenemy. Then came the floods and the argument was that the president should not go out of the country when his countrymen are suffering.

To me the first reason for cancelling the visit was ridiculous. Cameron’s predecessor Gordon Brown had time and again alleged that 75 percent of terrorist activities can be trailed back to Pakistan. Hillary Clinton, Admiral Mullen, Holbrooke, Karzai and of course Manmohan Singh and many others around the world have made similar charges against Pakistan. So, do we break relations with everybody and childishly tell them “we are not talking to you”?

First, the only way to stop the world from labelling us as a citadel of terrorism is to improve our behaviour. We have to distance ourselves from all such jihadi organisations that are considered as an asset by our national security managers. These groups are actually a great diplomatic liability. The reliance on such non-state actors is because our establishment feels insecure against India. Some of their apprehensions may be real but the answer is positive and better international diplomacy rather than relying on the support of the militants who are international pariahs and consider them our first line of defence in the east and future partners in the northwest.

Secondly, the only wise approach is to improve our communication with the world powers so that they understand Pakistan’s threat perception better. The more we communicate the more they would be able to provide us civilised solutions and support that may wean our establishment away from using the jihadist option.

However, the fact that there was no invitation from the British government made the president’s public relations (PR) manager’s job difficult. At the same time, pictures of his visit to the Château in France were damaging. He was criticised by the local and foreign media equally for such flamboyancy.

The second argument given against his visit by the media and his critics is that he should not have left the country when the people were faced with the worst floods in 80 years. Here I tend to agree with his critics. In the first place the floods had hit Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by the time he left Pakistan. He should have postponed the visit. His defenders, who have a poor case to defend, say that the chief executive is the prime minister who was in the country. Right. But as the head of state, Mr Zardari should take himself seriously and should be with the people of his country when they suffer instead of going on a junket.

His visit was also damaging for his political party. If the prime minister was supposed to supervise the relief and rescue work as the chief executive of the country, he was required to mobilise his party members to go out and help the people when they needed even a straw to swim through the deluge. Even in Sindh, a PPP stronghold, he was marked as missing. Many people in the affected areas complained that the PPP elected members have not been active in relief work according to their expectations. Rather some of the Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) were found obstructing the flood damage control efforts because they wanted to save their agriculture land.

Then there was the shoe throwing drama in the tradition of Bush junior. First the party denied any such incident. Now belatedly his party leaders have accepted that the incident did happen but the man who threw the shoe has a criminal record. It is quite possible that his opponents staged the drama. But the reaction of the party to gag a section of the media was again bad PR. Though it is a fact that a section of the media is campaigning against him and the electronic media in Pakistan is overblowing some stories a la Fox News, an effort to gag such channels is futile.

Learning his lesson, the good thing is that the president is now planning to cut short his visit to Moscow to attend a quadrilateral meeting on the invitation of Russia. Though this visit would also be criticised, there is a better rationale to support the contention that since the heads of states of other regional countries are coming there, Pakistan’s presence is necessary.

The overall impression that emerges from this episode is that President Zardari thinks he may in any case not get a second term so public opinion does not count. And as far as his party is concerned, it would be trounced by the burden of incumbency and inefficient governance. The PPP’s major success in leading the war against terrorism, the 18th Amendment and the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award will not be of much help in the next polls.

The president’s visit to Europe remained as the second hottest topic in the media. And in private meetings people always ask a foolish question about who advised him to go ahead with the visit. This is a standard question I have heard when a head of state or a prime minister makes a reckless decision, no matter who is ruling. My usual answer is that at that level one should not look for a scapegoat advisor, but rather the buck stops at the ‘Mr Know It All’ master.

The writer can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com

 

[Solomon2]

Yes we get it Soloman the point your trying to make is pakistan does not have the capability to provided the needed aid at this level. Obviously the government is inefficient...

No, that's not the point I'm making. This letter from Dawn expresses it better:

ON the roads of big cities of Sindh, especially Karachi and Hyderabad, a large number of flood-affected families can be seen living under the open sky waiting for help or some miracle to occur. It reminds me of our migration from India, but even in those miserable days I remember that people welcomed whole-heartedly and facilitated with food and shelter.

By not giving sufficiently, Pakistanis have let slip something that was dear to them, a sense of community, a shared empathy, that makes a collection of individuals into a people and a people into a nation.

 

[Al Bhatti]

Angry flood victims block highway



Sukkur: Pakistani flood victims, burning straw and waving sticks, blocked a highway Monday to demand government help as aid agencies warned relief was too slow to arrive for millions without clean water, food and homes.

Public anger has grown in the two weeks of floods, highlighting potential political troubles for an unpopular government overwhelmed by a disaster that has disrupted the lives of at least a tenth of its 170 million people.

Hundreds of villages across Pakistan in an area roughly the size of Italy have been marooned, highways have been cut in half and thousands of homeless people have been forced to set up tarpaulin tents along the side of roads.

But aid has failed to keep pace with the rising river waters.

"The speed with which the situation is deteriorating is frightening," Neva Khan, Oxfam's country director in Pakistan, said in a statement.

‘Dying of hunger'

"Communities desperately need clean water, latrines and hygiene supplies, but the resources currently available cover only a fraction of what is required."

Dozens of stick-wielding men and a few women tried to block five lanes of traffic outside Sukkur, a major town in the southern province of Sindh. Villagers set fire to straw and threatened to hit approaching cars with sticks.

"We left our homes with nothing and now we're here with no clothes, no food and our children are living beside the road," said protester Gul Hassan, clutching a large stick.

Hassan, like fellow protesters, has been forced from his village and sought refuge in Sukkur. He and others were camped under tattered plastic in muddy wasteland beside the road.

On Sunday night, hundreds of villagers burnt tyres and chanted "down with the government" in Punjab province.

"We are dying of hunger here. No one has showed up to comfort us," said Hafiz Shabbir, a protester in Kot Addu.

The damage caused by the floods and the cost of recovery could bring long-term economic pain to Pakistan and shave more than one percentage point off economic growth, analysts say.

Pakistani stocks ended down 2.9 per cent on fears the impact on growth may be more damaging than estimated after Sunday's warnings.

Up to 1,600 people have been killed, two million made homeless in Pakistan's worst floods in decades.

Only a quarter of the $459 million (Dh1,685 million) aid needed for initial relief has arrived, according to the United Nations. That contrasts with the United States giving at least $1 billion in military aid last year to its regional ally to battle militants.

Authorities forecast yesterday a brief respite in rains.

Water levels in the Indus River feeding Pakistan's plains have fallen in Punjab, the country's most populous and worst-hit province, although flooding would stay high where embankments were breached. In Sindh province, flooding could get worse.

"In Punjab, the water level in the river is falling and in the next four to five days ... there will be scattered rains, but they are not flood-producing,' Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, director-general of the meteorological department, told Reuters.

On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged donors to quicken up aid and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani warned of a second and third wave of floods.

Despite a possible break in heavy rains, many families had little hope of returning to their homes.

"We only hear that the water is receding but there is still more and more water in our village," said Mansha Bozdar, 45, whose village borders the Sanawan town in southern Punjab.

"It seems if it will never stop."

The UN has reported the first case of cholera amid fears that disease outbreaks.

High alert

"As humanitarians we certainly are on high alert because we have to be able to be prepared for any kind of development," said UN spokesman Maurizio Giuliano. "We don't know which way it's going to go. More flooding is certainly possible."

The government has been accused of being too slow to respond to the crisis with victims relying mostly on the military — the most powerful institution in Pakistan, and foreign aid agencies for help.

Despite the government's perceived failure to tackle the crisis, a military coup is unlikely. The army's priority is fighting Taliban insurgents, and seizing power during a disaster would make no sense, analysts say.

In Sukkur, hundreds of people set up camp along a sliver of dry land between the swollen Indus and a low concrete wall by a road running alongside the river.

But their sanctuary has been getting ever narrower as the river rises. Yesterday, the muddy bank was just a few feet wide in some places and the water was still coming up.

"Where can we go?" asked Faiz Mohammad as he squatted on the concrete wall. "Everywhere is flooded."

* 20m People have been hit by the floods
* 6m Children suffering from floods
* 3.5m Children at risk from water-borne diseases

gulfnews : Angry flood victims block highway


------------

I think the current situation in the country (floods and the poor relief efforts by the government) is the last possible chance to get rid of all the known corrupt politicians and leaders.

I hope the government gives little or no relief aid to the affected people and this will cause the people to revolt against the government and I would be very happy to see people pulling all the corrupt politicians and leaders from their palatial offices and houses and dragging them to the streets and killing them as a reward for the good standard of living the people of Pakistan are enjoying since the past couple of decades.

What i have expressed is merely my personal opinion.

 

[waraich66]

I think this flood will bring revolution in Pakistan.The real face of leaders now seen by public.
PPP and MLN could not get 5% votes in next election.

Army and Public should support Kalabagh Dam ,it is life line of Pakistan.

Pakistan is land of brave people , they need good leadership and right direction to move forward , Islam is only solution of all problems of Pakistanis.