Pakistan Flooding Four Months Later

13 Dec 2010

With the year coming to an end and the winter setting in, I thought of the estimated 20 million Pakistanis, whose lives were destroyed by the disastrous flooding.

The media interest has been waning and I wondered how the situation is by now. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the scale, there is still enormous problems to be solved.

The Telegraph reports

The shocking fact about events in Pakistan is that even now, almost two months after this journey in late October, so little has improved. Large areas of Sindh remain under water. Tents, long lines of white canvas along the embankments, have been erected for the many families made homeless as an estimated 1.6 million houses countrywide were damaged or destroyed by the flood waters.

But, as the chill of winter sets in, there are still an estimated 600,000 families without even emergency shelter.

Most of the people affected were living in poverty before the floods, but they made a living. Today they have no home, no income, nothing. Yet, as The Guardian writes, the needs are simple:

The list of what flood victims need to rebuild their lives is astonishingly short and inexpensive: seed for the next crop, fertilisers, some form of subsidy on electricity and irrigation water, and, if you want to be really generous, some financial help to rebuild their homes.

It may not be “news” anymore but we need to remember these people, help them get back on their feet. Several newspapers, including BBC, New York Times and The Guardian, have special sections covering the Pakistan Floods, but it is aid that is truly needed.