Catastrophic Floods Overwhelm Pakistan's Government
The United Nations says Pakistan’s devastating floods have affected more people than the 2004 tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and this year’s Haiti earthquake, combined. “Even as Pakistan’s government, international aid agencies, political parties, and ordinary citizens rush to the aid of the affectees, the scale of devastation across the length and breadth of the country is unimaginably huge. Hundreds of big and small bridges have crumbled under the force of the water cutting off entire regions from the rest of the country, thousands of miles of roads, hundreds of schools and dispensaries, thousands of houses, and acres of standing crops have been washed away,” says Asia Society Associate Fellow Ayesha Haroon. “Even as it coordinates with the army and the navy to mount rescue operations and with U.S. Chinook helicopters greatly supporting the evacuation missions, the government of Pakistan has announced that the rehabilitation of the affected is beyond its capabilities. The last thing the flood affectees living under open skies with no access to clean drinking water or food, mourning the loss of loved ones and trying to come to terms with the loss of homes and land and cattle and businesses, wanted to hear. ... For those who evacuated their villages and towns in the dead of night, with rain pouring down, mud sucking at their feet, cattle mooing in terror, heartrending screams of men and women who saw their homes disappear under the flood waters’ angry swirling waves, and whimpers of frightened children clinging to their parents, it is a nightmare they are unable to awaken from.”
Ayesha is in New York. To arrange an interview, contact the Asia Society communications department at 212-327-9271 or [email protected].