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US Army begins relief missions in Pakistan
The number of people hit by Pakistan’s worst floods in generations
rose to four million on Thursday, as thousands waded through water or crammed into cars to escape drowning villages.
The United Nations rushed a top envoy to Pakistan to mobilise international support and address the urgent plight of millions affected by torrential monsoon rains across the volatile country that have killed around 1,500.
The disaster is now into its second week and the rains are spreading into Pakistan’s most populous provinces of Punjab and Sindh, as anger mounts against the government response after villages and farmland were washed away.
“Altogether, more than four million people are in a way or another affected,” said Manuel Bessler, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Pakistan.
“What we are facing now is a major catastrophe,” the UN official said in Islamabad.
The helicopters are flying over Pakistan….. for better….and for worse.
US army helicopters flew their first relief missions in Pakistan’s flood-ravaged northwest on Thursday, airlifting hundreds of stranded people to safety from a devastated tourist town and distributing emergency aid.
Six helicopters landed in the resort town of Kalam in the Swat Valley, flying hundreds of people, many of them on holiday there, to safer areas lower down.
A US embassy spokesman said 800 people had been evacuated and relief goods distributed.
"Between them four Chinook and two Blackhawk helicopters flew up to 18 sorties today and dropped 66,000 pounds of relief supplies and evacuated more than 800 people from Kalam," said Richard Snelsire, an embassy spokesman.
The helicopters came over from Afghanistan, where nearly 150,000 US-led Nato troops are fighting Taliban forces.
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About The Seminal
“About 12 million people have now been affected by Pakistan’s worst floods in 80 years, disaster officials have said, raising previous estimates by three times.”
Population of Pakistan is 166,111,487.
All we need in this country is about 10 per cent of the people displaced to see how effective our government is. Oh, sorry, forgot about Katrina and the Gulf oil spill. /S
One of the things that struck me was the dearth of international aid for Pakistan..
Daily Times…
he Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government said on Thursday that no Islamic country, other than Saudi Arabia, had sent any relief supply so far for the flood victims.
“By Thursday, there has been no relief supply from any Islamic country except Saudi Arabia,” KP Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain said. “Last (Wednesday) night, a Saudi plane brought some 150 tents,” he added.
However, the KP government spokesman said the Saudi government should send more tents as over 700,000 people were marooned by the monsoon flooding. “We thank the Saudi government and the people for this assistance, but would like it to send more relief goods.”
Western countries, particularly the US, have been quite generous in dispatching relief goods immediately. Washington sent six helicopters to assist the army in evacuating the stranded people and take food to the areas cut off with rest of the country through roads.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010 8 6story_6-8-2010_pg7_18
The other main point, which i think is the big one, is that once Pakistan accepts our troops on their soil, it’s likely gonna get even stickier than it is now.