One million people displaced in just 48 hours

PAKISTAN ordered 300,000 people to evacuate a southern city after waters breached its defences as the United Nations warned yesterday the country’s worst humanitarian crisis was deepening.

For nearly a month, torrential monsoon rain has triggered massive floods steadily moving from north to south, affecting a fifth of the volatile country – an area roughly the size of England – and 17 million people.

The floods have swept south and the United Nations estimated that around one million people had been displaced in the province of Sindh in the last 48 hours where rising waters threatened a string of major towns.

“We ordered people of Thatta city on Thursday night to move to safer places, after floods breached an embankment at Faqir Jogoth village,” administration official Manzoor Sheikh said.

About 70% of Thatta’s 300,000 people had so far moved to safer areas and the deluge is bearing down on the city, he said.

“We hope that (army) engineers will be able to repair the breach or otherwise floodwaters will inundate Thatta city,” Sheikh said.

He said the surrounding towns of Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Darro – which had a combined population of 400,000 – had already been evacuated.

People were fleeing Thatta, where streets were deserted and shops shut, to nearby Makli and Karachi with their livestock and luggage, as engineers tried to repair the 20-foot wide breach.

In Makli, which is a hilly area, devastated people were seen sitting out in the open with children and cattle.

“It is the worst tragedy. . . We are leaving our homes in miserable condition,” said Abdul Karim Palejo, a government school teacher in Thatta.

“I leave behind a house which is more than a century old . . . My heart bleeds when I think of this house inundating in floodwaters,” he added.

A spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Islamabad estimated that one million people were displaced in the last 48 hours in the southern province of Sindh alone.

“An already colossal disaster is getting worse and requiring an even more colossal response. The magnitude of this crisis is reaching levels that are even beyond our initial fears,” said spokesman Maurizio Giuliano.

“The number of those affected and those in need of assistance from us is bound to keep rising.”

However, the orders to evacuate Thatta threw into chaos plans by hundreds of people already on the move, fleeing flooded villages and hoping that the district’s biggest city could provide relief and shelter.

Abdul Razak, a lanky 55-year-old heading towards Thatta, said he was leaving nothing to chance when it came to salvaging his possessions, weighing down a solitary cart with mattresses, blankets and clothes and “two days” of food.

“Afterwards, it will be in God’s hands,” he said.

Pakistan’s worst humanitarian disaster has left eight million people dependent on aid for their survival and washed away huge swathes of the rich farmland on which the country’s struggling economy depends.

The Pakistani government has confirmed 1,600 people dead and 2,366 injured, but officials warn that millions are at risk from disease and food shortages.

The country’s disaster agency said yesterday there would be a “significant rise” in the death toll as waters recede and the number of missing are counted.

The United Nations has warned that 800,000 people in desperate need of aid had been cut off by the deluge across the country and appealed for more helicopters to deliver supplies to those people reachable only by air.

Officials say around 4.5 million people urgently need shelter and Giuliano expressed serious concerns about rising malnutrition among children, with up to 20% of children in affected areas now suffering fromdiarrhoea diseases.

In Washington, which has put Pakistan on the front line of efforts to beat back the Taliban in Afghanistan, a US official said Pakistani Taliban were planning to attack foreign aid workers engaged in the relief effort.

Floodwaters are beginning to recede across most of the country as the water flows downstream, but high tides in the Arabian Sea meant they still posed a threat to towns in Sindh province such as Thatta, 70km east of Karachi.

“Concern continues to be the south,” UN spokes-woman Stacey Winston said.

A stream of buses, cars, trucks and bullock carts snaked out of Thatta heading for higher ground. Many people were walking, driving livestock and carrying bundles of possessions.

But some people refused to go. “We’re not going to leave. How can we leave? Who will protect my house?” said fisherman Bali Bhal sitting by the road.

The town has not been flooded, but officials said they were taking no chances.

“Our biggest apprehension is, if we are unable to control the water and road access is cut, then it would be very difficult to mobilise resources and evacuate people,” said provincial disaster management director Saleh Farooqi.

The official death toll is about 1,600 people, but a spokeswoman for the National Disaster Management Authority said that number would go up.

“Some of them may be found and some of may not,” the spokeswoman, Amal Masud, said of the many missing.

“There can be a significant increase in the death toll, but it will not be an alarming figure.”

The floods are Pakistan’s worst ever natural disaster in terms of the amount of damage and the number of people affected.

The floods have deepened anger with the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, which was already perceived as ineffective and corrupt and there are fears of social unrest.