Floods: Nearly 5 million affected countrywide

According to NDMA, 440 people have been killed, 3,000 injured.

ISLAMABAD:

The recent floods triggered by torrential rains have affected nearly five million people and claimed 440 lives across the country, The Express Tribune learnt on Sunday.

“In the 2012 floods, over 440 people lost their lives and 3,000-plus sustained injuries,” a senior official of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) told The Express Tribune. “Around 4.8 million people in 20 districts have been affected.”

The devastating rains swamped 1.5 million acres of farmland, destroying standing crops and inflicting a serious blow to the country’s agri-based economy. The deluge also damaged and destroyed 400,000 houses and killed over 10,000 cattle-heads in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan, the official added.

A month after the flooding, over 100,000 people are still waiting for food, medicines and clean drinking water in close to two dozen districts of the four provinces.

The 2010 epic floods had affected more than 20 million people in 78 districts of the country. Over 1,980 deaths and 2,946 injuries were reported, according to a newsletter published by the NDMA. The floods had also destroyed 1.6 million homes and caused damage to crops on hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland.

According to initial estimates of the NDMA, Sindh is the worst-hit province this year, where crops on one million acres of land has been destroyed or damaged, 245 people have been killed and 2,500 injured. A total of 3.2 million people have been affected in the province, where 0.4 million houses have been damaged and 1,900 cattle-heads lost.

In Jaffarabad and Naseerabad districts of Balochistan, 65 people have died and 0.1 million houses destroyed, leaving 95% of residents shelter-less. Crops on over 100,000 acres of land have been damaged and 75, 000 cattle-heads have perished.

In Punjab, the floods have affected 0.6 million acres of farmland. Sixty-five people have lost their lives, 320 have been injured, 938 cattle have perished, 25,453 houses have been washed away, affecting around a million people.

Heavy rains and subsequent flooding killed 46 people, injured 56 and damaged 6,000 houses in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where officials are yet to assess crop damage.

In Azad Jammu and Kashmir, floods have also left 36 people dead and 40 injured. In all, 2,500 houses have been damaged. Five people died in the federal capital as a result of torrential rains.

“The estimated damage to the economy is around Rs300 billion. Both private and public sector infrastructures have been badly affected,” said NDMA Chairman Dr Zaffar Iqbal Qadir while quoting economic experts.

Meanwhile, Balochistan and Sindh appealed to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Sunday for medicines to treat victims of waterborne diseases in the flood-hit areas.

Local health departments have been unable to cope with the situation. “We have repeatedly asked the federal government for more medical camps but no one listens to us. Now, waterborne diseases are piling miseries on the flood victims in Sindh and Balochistan,” said Federal Minister for Science and Technology Mir Changez Khan Jamali.

Only 105 medicine packets have been delivered to Balochistan so far, where thousands of families are suffering from waterborne diseases, said Tahir Munir, the director general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA).

Meanwhile, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund said at least 1.4 million children have been affected in the recent rains.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2012.