|
|
Pakistan Flood Sets Back Years of Gains on Infrastructure (26 August 2010) Men waded waist deep all week wedging stones with their bare hands into an embankment to hold back Pakistan’s surging floodwaters. It was a rudimentary and ultimately vain effort to save their town. On Thursday, the waters breached the levee, a demoralizing show of how fragile Pakistan’s infrastructure remains, and how overwhelming the task is to save it. Even as Pakistani and international relief officials scrambled to save people and property, they despaired that the nation’s worst natural calamity had ruined just about every physical strand that knit this country together — roads, bridges, schools, health clinics, electricity and communications. The destruction could set Pakistan back many years, if not decades, further weaken its feeble civilian administration and add to the burdens on its military. It seems certain to distract from American requests for Pakistan to battle Taliban insurgents, who threatened foreign aid workers delivering flood relief on Thursday. It is already disrupting vital supply lines to American forces in Afghanistan. The flooding, which began with the arrival of the annual monsoons late last month, has by now affected about one-fifth of the country — nearly 62,000 square miles — or an area larger than England, according to the United Nations. At the worst points, the inundation extends for scores of miles beyond the banks of the overflowing Indus River and its tributaries, said Cmdr. Iqbal Zahid, a Pakistani Navy battalion commander in charge of rescue operations in Sindh Province. “You have to highlight that the infrastructure all the way from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to Sindh is ruined,” Commander Zahid said, referring to Pakistan’s northernmost and southernmost provinces. “It will take years to rebuild.” Nearly 20 million people have been significantly affected, about the population of New York State, the United Nations said. The number in urgent need is now about eight million and expected to rise. More than half of them are without shelter. The government’s estimates of the damage are equally grim. More than 5,000 miles of roads and railways have been washed away, along with some 7,000 schools and more than 400 health facilities. Just to build about 500 miles of road in war-ravaged Afghanistan, the United States spent $500 million and several years, according to the Web site of the United States Agency for International Development. And the agency has spent $200 million to rebuild just 56 schools, 19 health facilities and other services since the momentous earthquake in the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir in 2005. One estimate, in a joint study from Ball State University and the University of Tennessee, put the total cost of the flood damage at $7.1 billion. That is nearly a fifth of Pakistan’s budget, and it exceeds the total cost of last year’s five-year aid package to Pakistan passed by Congress. Standing on the edges of the floods, the scale of the damage is evident. The water has torn mile-long breaches atop two of the main canals in Sindh Province, where tens of thousands of people were evacuated Thursday. Until the gaps can be repaired, water will continue flooding districts along the right bank of the Indus, officials said. Floodwaters have ripped up the road from here to Jacobabad, cutting off the main highway that reaches both Baluchistan Province, Pakistan’s poorest, and into Afghanistan, one of the main supply routes used by United States forces. What the waters have not destroyed, rescue workers have been forced to, in some cases. In the southern provinces, Pakistani government workers pointed out places where they had to blow up roads, embankments and even the railway line to steer the flow of water away from the larger towns. The velocity of the floods was greatest in northern Pakistan, home to steep mountain valleys, and the infrastructure damage there was the worst. The mountainous Swat Valley, which was still struggling to rebuild from the army’s campaign against Taliban insurgents, has lost every bridge and whole sections of its roads. An entire neighborhood of the town of Madyan, along with the hospital compound and an electricity station, were swept away, leaving sand and stones in their place. Great chunks of the famed Karakoram Highway — a celebrated feat of high-altitude engineering built by the Chinese over two decades — have disappeared as cliffs fell away in the torrent. The route, which winds hundreds of miles from the Chinese border in the Himalayas to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, may now be impassable for years, officials said. A number of hydroelectric dams in the north, which are being built by China, have also been damaged. Five workers, including two Chinese engineers and three Pakistanis, drowned when floods swept through one construction camp earlier this month, the government reported. The United States has agreed to help the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank conduct a damage and needs assessment for the Pakistani government. The figure is bound to be big. The recovery cost will have to be met by a mixture of domestic money, international donations and loans from development banks, the administrator of A.I.D., Dr. Rajiv Shah, said after a tour of flooded regions on Wednesday. The lack of electricity, especially through the infernally hot summer months, is a constant problem for the government and a reason for repeated strikes and public protests throughout Pakistan, even in ordinary times. The damage to the electricity and power sector alone could run to $125 million, according to a government report shown to The New York Times. Water and energy were a prime focus of the five-year $7.5 billion American aid package for Pakistan passed by Congress last year. The Obama administration had hoped to use the legislation as the centerpiece of a lasting strategic partnership with Pakistan and to help buttress the economy and Pakistan’s weak government institutions. Now, American officials fear that money will end up being spent just to get Pakistan back to where it was before the “super flood.” The United States has already redirected $50 million of the aid package to help with the flood recovery, and the disaster will force a review of all projects that had been planned, Dr. Shah said. “Priorities will necessarily have to shift and shift so that there is more of a recovery and reconstruction approach than people were thinking just a few months ago,” he told reporters during a trip to Sukkur. He and other American officials are insisting that the disaster be treated as an opportunity for Pakistan to “leapfrog” ahead and help it build water and energy systems better than what was destroyed. They point to successes that grew out of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, namely the creation of the National Disaster Management Administration, which is now spearheading the government response to the floods. But diplomats said government accountability and reforms in the rule of law would have to accompany the effort and the aid money. “This is going to be very, very difficult, this is a huge scale disaster,” Dr. Shah said. “But we have to continue to be optimistic and look for those opportunities to help Pakistan to use this to build back better.” IHT Return to Top of Page Back to Home Page New Flood Warnings Raise Fears in Pakistan (12 August 2010) Pakistan issued new flood warnings on Thursday that could last into the weekend as government and relief agencies scrambled to confront the toll from a growing humanitarian disaster. The new warnings to several cities in Punjab and Sindh Provinces added to the desperation of survivors and relief workers across the country facing a daily struggle for survival and to prevent outbreaks of disease. President Asif Ali Zardari, who came under stinging criticism for making a trip to Europe as the flood disaster unfolded, made his first tour of flood-hit areas on Thursday since his return to the country this week, news reports said. The United Nations has estimated that at least one-fifth of the country is underwater, but the scope of damage seems far greater. About 14 million people have been affected by the floods, 6 million of them are children, according to the United Nations children’s organization, usually known as Unicef. Estimates of the dead have ranged between 1,200 and 1,600. Beyond the daily rising toll of dead, displaced and starving, experts assessing the crisis said much remained to be learned of the short-term relief needs and the longer-term economic challenges that Pakistan faced from the floods. Entire villages and towns remain underwater. Conventional travel around Pakistan has been disrupted with roads washed away. “It’s very difficult because we have not been able to access all areas,” said Irshad Shaikh, an expert on such crises with the World Health Organization. “To be frank, we do not yet have a countrywide picture” of the aid need. On Thursday, flood alerts went out to several cities in Punjab and Sindh. The city of Muzaffargarh in southern Punjab Province looked like a ghost town after more than 80 percent of its population left because of flooding fears. Hundreds of residents moved to makeshift encampments along a road to the city of Multan. One resident, Muhammad Farooq, said he chose to remain in Muzaffargarh to protect his house from theft while his family moved to Multan. “We are helpless and praying to God that our city is saved, as the threat is still there from the River Chenab,” he said. About 400,000 people had been evacuated in Muzaffargarh and outlying areas, said Suhail Tipu, a government official coordinating the relief and rescue operation. Dozens of villages and towns in the area were flooded by waters from the Indus River, he said. In Sindh Province, local officials braced for floodwaters threatening to inundate the city of Jacobabad on Thursday night, said Ghulam Ali Shah Pasha, chairman of Provincial Disaster Management Authority of Sindh. Another 300,000 people had to be evacuated from the Kashmore District in Sindh, he said. “There are 450 relief camps across Sindh,” Mr. Pasha said. “We are providing cooked meals. The biggest problem is that most of the people don’t want to go to relief camps. They have tribal enmities and cultural sensitivities.” Across Pakistan, relief workers have made priorities of such needs such as food, water and shelter, while health workers focus on preventing diseases. The government and relief agencies are sending emergency tents, mosquito nets, food, water-purifying tablets and cholera prevention kits. Dr. Shaikh of the World Health Organization said health risks included diarrhea and skin and respiratory infection, while immunization efforts have begun against measles and polio. Although it is too early to determine how Pakistan’s economy will be affected, early reports appear grim. Citing agricultural officials, Dawn newspaper reported on Thursday that about 500,000 tons of wheat had been destroyed by the floods. Additionally, as many as two million bales of cotton were lost, the newspaper reported. At the request of Pakistan’s government, the World Bank has joined with other agencies such as the Asian Development Bank to assess the damage to the country’s economy, said Shahzad Sharjeel of the World Bank office in Islamabad. The assessment period may take another week or two, Mr. Sharjeel said, adding that the World Bank already has provided $1.3 million in emergency grants. Flooding began on July 22 in the province of Baluchistan. The swollen waters then poured across the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province in the northwest before flowing south into Punjab and Sindh. The United Nations earlier this week appealed for $460 million in emergency aid. The appeal came after donors had already pledged an estimated $150 million. As part of the stepped-up international effort, the United States said it would increase from six to 19 the number of military helicopters on loan to Pakistan to assist with flood relief. “The magnitude of this crisis is unprecedented” in Pakistan, said Dr. Shaikh. Many people who depend on the land and animals for survival have their livelihoods simply washed away, he said. After the Kashmir earthquake in 2005, relief workers had access to some resources. “Here, everything is gone. Crops, livestock, homes, communities,” Dr. Shaikh said. “There is nothing for people to fall back on.” IHT Return to Top of Page Back to Home Page |
