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NEWS & LETTERS, September-October 2010
World in View
Pakistani flood
by Gerry Emmett
The worst floods in its known history hit Pakistan in August. One fifth of the country was underwater as rivers, swollen by monsoon rains, topped their banks. The extent of damage is only beginning to sink in.
Over 2,500 people were killed, with another 25 million affected, many now homeless refugees. Fully 2.5 million acres of farmland were submerged, destroying wheat and rice crops as well as 400,000 farm animals. Diseases are breaking out in hardest hit areas. In terms of the number of people affected it is a bigger disaster than the 2004 tsunami.
In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa the last 50 years worth of infrastructure was destroyed. Sindh, Punjab and Baluchistan were also hit hard. Pakistan's government had to play catch-up with Islamist charities linked to militant groups. As with education or healthcare in more normal times, the government showed little inclination to help the people. They offer recourse to prayer, without concrete aid. A Swat Valley schoolteacher expressed the popular anger: "We have lost everything. We only managed to save our lives. Nobody has come to us. We are being treated like orphans, animals."
The vast majority of Pakistani government spending goes to the military and the servicing of foreign debt. Government failures after the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir led to growing popularity of the Islamist organizations. Various Pakistani Left and civil groups are also collecting aid and deserve to be supported now.
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