US triples number of Pakistani aid helicopters

The boost in the US deployment came as outgoing UN humanitarian chief John Holmes appealed for $460 million in aid.

The United States tripled Wednesday the number of helicopters helping Pakistan's flood relief effort, as top US officials issued somber warnings about the massive scale of the disaster.

The boost in the US deployment came as outgoing UN humanitarian chief John Holmes appealed for $460 million  in emergency aid for up to 14 million people reeling from Pakistan's worst floods in living memory.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the USS Peleliu, an amphibious assault ship, was moored off Karachi awaiting the green light to dispatch its 19 helicopters to the disaster zone.

"The flooding in Pakistan has the potential to be significantly more disastrous for the country than the earthquake several years ago," Gates said, referring to the 2005 Kashmir earthquake that killed more than 73,000 people. "The (US) president (Barack Obama) wants to lean forward in offering help to the Pakistanis," Gates said. "We will work with them (the Pakistanis) and do this at their pace."

Six US helicopters -- to be redeployed to Afghanistan once those on the Peleliu begin work -- have so far rescued 3,000 people and delivered 146 tonnes of aid, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

The United Nations believes 1,600 people have died since Pakistan's worst monsoon-related floods in living memory struck in July and early August, devastating large parts of the country from north to south.

Pakistan has confirmed 1,243 deaths. Richard Holbrooke, US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, urged the American people in an interview Wednesday to try to comprehend the enormous scale of the suffering in Pakistan.

"Although the deaths are far less than they were in the (2004 Indian Ocean) tsunami, and in the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, and in Haiti, the overall number of people affected is much larger than all of those combined," he said. "The international recognition of this disaster has not yet been sufficient to its dimensions," he told the Council on Foreign Relations. "That is because floods, unlike earthquakes and tsunamis, are not sudden catastrophes that hit and then the reconstruction begins. They're rolling crises, which grow and are initially underestimated, and that is what has happened in Pakistan."

Holbrooke said Pakistan's fragile economy would be drastically hit by the fact that all its crops had been wiped out, as he painted a grim picture of bridges and dams washed out and others poised to burst. "The greatest fear of the experts is that diseases will break out in refugee camps -- bad water, cholera, typhoid -- and we need to work hard on that, so medicine is critically needed," he said. "Nobody knows the full extent (of damage) yet, but we do know that it is the worst flood in Pakistan's history since independence and apparently the worst one since the 1920s."

As Pakistan admitted being unable to cope with the scale of the unfolding disaster, the UN warned that children were among the most vulnerable victims, with diarrhea the biggest health threat and measles a concern. "The death toll has so far been relatively low compared to other major natural disasters, but the numbers affected are extraordinarily high," Holmes warned. "If we don't act fast enough, many more people could die of diseases and food shortages."

Holbrooke dismissed reports that hardline Islamic charities were filling the vacuum and gaining support in areas the Pakistani government hasn't been able to reach. "The people I've talked to question the accuracy of those reports," he said. "I don't think we should even worry about those right now. We should just worry about relief and getting assistance to the people."

The Pakistani Taliban, which has been fighting the military in the tribal belt and last year in the cut-off northwestern Swat valley, has called on the government to turn down all foreign aid for the victims. Asked about the possible impact of floods on the Pakistani military's fight against the militants, Gates said: "They are going to have to divert some troops and already have to try to deal with the flooding. "But I would say that we weren't expecting them to undertake new offensives for some period of time anyway. I think it just remains to be seen. It really depends on how many troops they have to use."