Pakistan orders evacuation of southern town

THATTA: Pakistan ordered 300,000 people to evacuate a southern city after waters breached its defences as the United Nations warned Friday the country's worst humanitarian crisis was deepening.

For nearly a month, torrential monsoon rain has triggered massive floods steadily moving from north to south, affecting a fifth of the volatile country -- an area roughly the size ofEngland -- and 17 million people.

The United Nations estimated that around one million people had been displaced in the southern province of Sindh in 48 hours, where rising waters threatened a string of major towns.

“We ordered people of Thatta city on Thursday night to move to safer places after floods breached an embankment at Faqir Jogoth village,” administration official Manzoor Sheikh told AFP.

About 70 per cent of Thatta's approximately 300,000 people had so far moved to safer areas and the deluge is bearing down on the city, he said.

“We hope that (army) engineers will be able to repair the breach or otherwise floodwaters will inundate Thatta city,” Sheikh said.

He said the surrounding towns of Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Darro -- which had a combined population of 400,000 -- had already been evacuated.

People were fleeing Thatta, where streets were deserted and shops shut, to nearby Makli and Karachi with their livestock and luggage as engineers tried to repair the six-metre (20-foot) wide breach, an AFP reporter said.

In Makli, which is a hilly area, devastated people were seen sitting out in the open with their children and cattle.

“It is the worst tragedy.... We are leaving our homes in miserable condition,” said Abdul Karim Palejo, a government schoolteacher in Thatta.

“I leave behind a house which is more than a century old.... My heart bleeds when I think of this house inundating in floodwaters,” he added.

A spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) inIslamabad estimated that one million people were displaced in a 48-hour period in Sindh alone.

“An already colossal disaster is getting worse and requiring an even more colossal response. The magnitude of this crisis is reaching levels that are even beyond our initial fears,” said the spokesman Maurizio Giuliano.

“The number of those affected and those in need of assistance from us are bound to keep rising.”The orders to evacuate Thatta threw into chaos plans by hundreds of people already on the move, fleeing flooded villages and hoping that the district's biggest city could provide relief and shelter.

Abdul Razak, a lanky 55-year-old heading towards Thatta, said he was leaving nothing to chance when it came to salvaging his possessions, weighing down a solitary cart with mattresses, blankets and clothes and “two days” of food.

“Afterwards, it will be in God's hands,” he said.

Pakistan's worst humanitarian disaster has left eight million dependent on aid for their survival and washed away huge swathes of the rich farmland on which the country's struggling economy depends.

The Pakistani government has confirmed 1,600 people dead and 2,366 injured, but officials warn that millions are at risk from disease and food shortages.

The country's disaster agency said Friday there would be a “significant rise” in the death toll as waters recede and the numbers of missing are counted.

Amid the global humanitarian effort US aid chief Rajiv Shah said he faced a threat when visiting a relief camp but pledged that extremists would not deter assistance.

Shah, administrator of the US Agency for International Development, said he quickly exited the camp he was touring in the southern city of Sukkur on Wednesday at the urging of his security guards.

Shah, who believed militants went to the camp because he was there, told reporters after returning to Washington it was “deeply saddening that others would choose to use these environments to propagate themselves.” US officials have warned of threats by extremists against foreign workers assisting in relief.

In terms of surface area, Sindh is now the worst-affected province of the country. Out of its 23 districts, 19 have so far been ravaged by floods, a UN OCHA statement said Friday.

The United Nations has warned that 800,000 people in desperate need of aid had been cut off by the deluge across the country and appealed for more helicopters to deliver supplies to those people reachable only by air.

Officials say around 4.5 million people urgently need shelter and Giuliano expressed serious concerns about rising malnutrition among children, with up to 20 per cent of children in affected areas now suffering from diarrhoea-related diseases. – AFP