SUKKUR, Pakistan, (Reuters) – Pakistani flood victims, burning straw and waving sticks, blocked a highway yesterday to demand government help as aid agencies warned relief was too slow to arrive for millions without clean water, food and homes.
Public anger has grown in the two weeks of floods, highlighting potential political troubles for an unpopular government overwhelmed by a disaster that has disrupted the lives of at least a tenth of its 170 million people.
Hundreds of villages across Pakistan in an area roughly the size of Italy have been marooned, highways have been cut in half and thousands of homeless people have been forced to set up tarpaulin tents along the side of roads.
Aid has failed to keep pace with the rising river waters.
“The speed with which the situation is deteriorating is frightening,” Neva Khan, Oxfam’s country director in Pakistan, said in a statement.
“Communities desperately need clean water, latrines and hygiene supplies, but the resources currently available cover only a fraction of what is required.”
The United Nations warned yesterday that up to 3.5 million children could be at risk of contracting deadly diseases carried through contaminated water and insects.
Dozens of stick-wielding men and a few women tried to block five lanes of traffic outside Sukkur, a major town in the southern province of Sindh. Villagers set fire to straw and threatened to hit approaching cars with sticks.
“We left our homes with nothing and now we’re here with no clothes, no food and our children are living beside the road,” said protester Gul Hasan, clutching a large stick.
Hasan, like fellow protesters, has been forced from his village and sought refuge in Sukkur. He and others were camped under tattered plastic in muddy wasteland beside the road.
On Sunday night, hundreds of villagers burnt tyres and chanted “down with the government” in Punjab province.
“We are dying of hunger here. No one has showed up to comfort us,” said Hafiz Shabbir, a protester in Kot Addu.
ONLY A QUARTER
OF AID ARRIVES
The damage caused by the floods and the cost of recovery could bring long-term economic pain to Pakistan and shave more than one percentage point off economic growth, analysts say.
Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, told Reuters the cost of rebuilding could be more than $10 to $15 billion and appealed to the international community to provide funds to help stabilise the country.
“These floods have really dislocated everything,” he said.
Pakistani stocks ended down 2.9 percent on fears the impact may be more damaging than estimated after Sunday’s warnings.
The government has been under fire for its perceived inadequate response. Islamic charities, some linked to militant groups, have stepped in to provide aid to flood victims, possibly gaining supporters at the expense of the state.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi expressed concerns over Pakistan’s stability, saying it was dangerous to let them fill the vacuum. “I am worried,” he told the BBC.
Up to 1,600 people have been killed and two million made homeless in Pakistan’s worst floods in decades.
