Pakistan: Millions in Urgent Need

     With new floods compounding the effects of weeks of inundation across Pakistan, the people of this nation in crisis are in desperate need of a different kind of deluge: the rain of compassion.

     
     Mohammad Umar could not salvage even a blanket for his children as he and his family fled the rising floodwaters in the village of Sultan Kot. They escaped with just the clothes on their backs, he told an aid worker with the Nations Capacity Building Program, a partner of Church World Service (CWS) and the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).

     
     Lost to Umar are his collapsed home, his tools and cooking utensils, and his 10 acres of cotton crop which would have paid for the education of his eight children. The crop was washed away, and his tools and utensils are buried beneath the mud left by the raging floodwaters.

     
     Umar and his family are among the estimated 8 million Pakistanis in need of immediate emergency aid, including food, clean water, and shelter. And they are among the more than 20 million Pakistanis affected by the flooding that has torn through the country’s four provinces.

      Since about July 22, heavier than normal monsoon rains caused the Indus River and its tributaries to overflow their banks. The Sibi District in the province of Balochistan, where Sultan Kot is located, saw at least one village completely under water and many others flooded.

     
     While the number of deaths so far is relatively low for so extensive a disaster, the United Nations estimates that the number of people affected by the crisis is comparable to the combined toll of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. “Disasters cannot be measured by the number of dead,” said a CWS communication last week. “Effective humanitarian response must be measured against the number of those affected who are struggling to survive, particularly as initial cholera cases and starvation deaths are reported.”

     
     The Rev. Cynthia Fierro Harvey, UMCOR head, underscored the urgency of supporting the survivors. “This crisis is of major proportions,” she said. “Survivors need food, clean water, medical care, and shelter now, as they seek to stave off waterborne and infectious diseases.”

     
     Flood victims crowd the back of a trailer while evacuating to higher grounds in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district in Punjab province August 11, 2010. The floods have ploughed a swathe of destruction more than 600 miles long from northern Pakistan to the south, killing more than 1,600 people.

     
     At least 8 million Pakistanis are in dire need of emergency assistance—food, clean water, and shelter; more than 20 million have been affected.  Your help is urgently needed. Please give generously to International Disaster Response, Pakistan Flash Floods, UMCOR Advance #982450. Please remember to indicate Pakistan Floods on the memo line of your check.