International donors have come forward with nearly $500 million in aid for flood-hit Pakistan, with the US, Saudi Arabia and Britain leading the way, figures showed on Friday.The Financial Tracking Service (FTS), a UN database that aims to track all donations, showed on Friday that $490.7 million has come in for Pakistan's floods, with another $325 million promised. Just over half came via the UN's emergency appeal fund while the rest came via bilateral aid, chiefly from Saudi Arabia, charities or private organisations and companies. The UN launched a $460 million appeal for donations on August 11, saying this was the amount it estimated was needed by Pakistan to recover from the disaster. According to the FTS, $263 million has been donated via the appeal -- 57 percent of the target -- with the lion's share of that total, 88 million, coming from the US. The UK has donated $34.7 million via the UN fund while Australia has given $26.6 million and the European Commission $18.6 million. "It is very likely that the need for donations will strongly increase because, since our estimate of August 11, the number of people in need of immediate humanitarian aid has risen from six to eight million," Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Islamabad, told AFP. The UN will have to revise its target within 30 days following the launch of the appeal, Giuliano said.d.
More tents and plastic sheets have been secured to help 4.6 million shelterless Pakistanis, a UN spokesman said, easing pressure on aid workers hoping to stop diseases spreading in the country's flood crisis. "The good news is that we have been able to double the amount of tents and plastic sheets that are in the pipeline that are coming in," Giuliano said. Half a million people are living in about 5,000 schools, said Giuliano, where poor hygiene and sanitation, along with cramped quarters and the stifling heat, provide fertile ground for potentially fatal diseases such as cholera. Isolated rains are expected in parts of central Punjab, southern Sindh and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the next 24 hours, officials said.