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Billions of Dollars Needed for Pakistan's Flood Victims
 Local and international relief workers say continued heavy rainfall has worsened the situation in Pakistain where raging floodwaters have killed more than 1,600 people and affected 15 million in the past two weeks. The United Nations says Pakistain will need billions of dollars to recover from its worst floods in history.Pakistain usually needs billions of dollars for some catastrophe or other. Some of the victims will literally wait years before aid arrives, while politicians will hoover up as much cash as they can and snag as much of the aid in kind as they can for black market resale. At some point not too far in the future the Pak government will get huffy over any kind of controls attached to the aid. Women hired as aid workers will be beaten up, raped, or killed by the local turbans, and when the situation's almost under control any Western aid workers silly enough to still be around will be chased out. There. Covered that whole story. In addition to causing major human loses, Pakistain's raging floodwaters have destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, washed away crops and livestock. Floodwaters have raged down from the northwestern Khyber Pakhtoonkhaw Province ... formerly NWFP, which you've got to admit was easier to spell... to the agriculture heartland of Punjab and have reached the southern Sindh province. The Mighty Pak Army is leading the relief efforts, but with more rain forecast relief workers are anticipating further devastation. Bad weather has hampered helicopter flights carrying relief goods for victims still trapped in remote areas. U.N officials say they are particularly worried about the needs of 600,000 people who remain completely cut off in the north of Khyber Paskhtoonkhaw Province. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani traveled to the flood-hit parts of southern Pakistain, where he told reporters his country has been set back many years because of the devastation. Pakistain getting set back many years means they're now in negative numbers... He reiterated his appeal for the international community to cough up some major boodle. But the prime minister dismissed criticism the government's poor response is to be blamed for the miseries of the flood victims. "No, no! Certainly not!" "In fact, the government has done everything possible under its control," he said. "Provincial governments, they are all doing their utmost. But it is [an]unprecedented flood, it is beyond imagination and it is beyond expectation." ... just like the last disaster was... U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs front man Maurizio Giuliano tells VOA shelter for the millions of victims is the biggest and most urgent concern. "We will need hundreds of thousands of tents," said Giuliano. "Therefore, we are working closely in support of the government trying to liase with donors, trying to liase with all U.N agencies and NGOs so that we can figure out where we can get a lot of tents from or some other kind of shelter." Posted by: Fred 2010-08-09 |
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