FLOOD IN PAKISTAN, 2010

FLOOD IN PAKISTAN, 2010

Water is a basic need for the people. It is a great gift from Allah for His creatures. For this purpose Allah gifted us rivers and oceans. If all the rivers and oceans flow within limit, it is a mercy, but when it overflows, it brings immeasurable disasters that can not be controlled by the means of human efforts.

The 2010 Pakistan floods began in July 2010 following heavy monsoon rains in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan regions of Pakistan and affected the Indus River basin. At one point, approximately one-fifth of Pakistan's total land area was underwater. According to Pakistani government data the floods directly affected about 20 million people

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had initially asked for $460 million for emergency relief, noting that the flood was the worst disaster he had ever seen. Only 20% of the relief funds requested had been received as of 15 August 2010.. The Pakistani economy has been harmed by extensive damage to infrastructure and crops.

Aftermath

The power infrastructure of Pakistan also took a severe blow from the floods, which damaged 10,000 transmission lines and transformers, feeders and power houses in different flood-hit areas. Flood water inundated Jinnah Hydro power and 150 power houses in Gilgit. The damage caused a power shortfall of 3.135 giga-watt.

Aid agencies have warned that outbreaks of diseases, such as gastroenteritis, diarrhea, and skin diseases due to lack of clean drinking water and sanitation can pose a serious new risk to flood victims.

Potential long term effects

Food

Floods have submerged 17 million acres of Pakistan's most fertile crop land, have killed 200,000 herds of livestock and have washed away massive amounts of grain. A major concern is that farmers will be unable to meet the fall deadline for planting new seeds in 2010, which implies a massive loss of food production in 2011. Agricultural crops such as cotton, rice, and sugarcane and to some extent mangoes were badly affected in Punjab.

Infrastructure

Floods have damaged an estimated 2,433 miles of highway and 3,508 miles (5,646 km) of railway. Cost estimates for highway damages are approximately 158 million USD, and railway damages are 131 million USD. Any unique or particularly large infrastructure damages will increase these estimates. Public building damages are estimated at 1 billion USD. Aid donors have presented an estimate that 5,000 schools have been destroyed. The Karakoram Highway, which connects Pakistan with China, was closed after a bridge was destroyed

Economic effects

On 7 September 2010, the International Labour Organization reported that more than 5.3 million jobs have been lost due to the floods, emphasizing that "productive and labor intensive job creation programmes are urgently needed to lift millions of people out of poverty that has been aggravated by flood damage". The loss of crops will hit the textile manufacturing which is the largest export sector of Pakistan.

Relief efforts

By the end of July 2010, Pakistan had appealed to international donors for help in responding to the disaster, having provided twenty-one helicopters and 150 boats to assist affected people, according to its National Disaster Management Authority. At that time the US embassy in Pakistan had provided seven helicopters.

 Inequality

Abdullah Hussain Haroon, Pakistan's diplomat to the United Nations, has alleged that wealthy feudal warlords and landowners in Pakistan have been diverting funds and resources away from the poor and into their own private relief efforts. Haroon also alluded to evidence that landowners had allowed embankments to burst, leading to water flowing away from their land. There are also allegations that local authorities colluded with the warlords to divert funds. The floods have accentuated the sharp divisions in Pakistan between the wealthy and the poor. The wealthy, with better access to transportation and other facilities, have suffered far less than the poor of Pakistan.