Development Enhancement & Effectiveness Partners - DEEP

The monsoon season is alwaysawaited in Pakistan,as this not only fills the dams’ reservoirs but also waters the fields where innormal conditions water is scant. But some times when it prolongs with heavyand continuous downpour, it plays havoc with life and property without anydistinction.    

The worst floods in memory in Pakistan have devastated the lives of more than 3 million people an still it is devastating. The catastrophe, which started last week of July 2010, and has killed more than 1,400 people, is likely to deepen as more rains are expected and a breakout of water-borne diseases such as cholera could create a health crisis.

Pakistani authorities are struggling to help flood victims, many of whom have lost everything and say they received no warnings that raging waters were heading their way. Anger was palpable in towns such as Charssada. A Reuters reporter saw people attacking trucks distributing relief items. Police then charged at them with batons.

Waters have spread from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to Pakistan's Punjab heartland, the major food-producing province, as well as the Sindh region.To add to the people's misery, food prices are also rising sharply as agriculture has been wiped out.

the miseries are mounting becuase of lack of resources and destruction of infrastructures as the main bridges, roads, shortage of releif goods and less capacity of civil society organizations due to greater magnitude. At the moment it is impossibleto assess the extent of damage. The flooding may have damaged hundreds ofhouses and life loss can be more as search-and-rescue work progressed. Due tothe heavy rains affected population especially poor people who were in housesmade by mud bricks have lost every thing of their daily use and majority ofthem are stranded helplessly.

Greatest damage is loss of crops and animals which are basic for livelihood and provide raw material for differnt industries.

All the people of the world are requested to lend hand in releif and rehabilitation. The dire consequences can be extreme poverty, mass scale casualities due to diseases and hunger, and surviving youth falling prey to differnt militant outfits.