Pakistan: 400 000 must be evacuated
2010-08-26 11:19
Hyderabad - Pakistan ordered nearly half a million people to evacuate towns on Thursday as rising floods threaten further havoc in a country straining to cope after its worst humanitarian disaster.
Torrential monsoon rains triggered massive floods affecting a fifth of the volatile country - an area roughly the size of England - where a US official warned that foreign aid workers are at risk from Taliban attacks.
Pakistan's worst humanitarian catastrophe has affected more than 17 million people, while officials warn that millions are at risk from water-borne diseases and food shortages.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said 1 600 people have been confirmed dead and 2 366 wounded throughout Pakistan's four provinces, Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the northern district of Gilgit-Baltistan.
In the southern province of Sindh, where the floods have washed away huge swathes of the rich farmland on which Pakistan's struggling economy depends, a senior administration official warned that fresh floods threaten three towns.
Pressure mounting on burial site
"We have warned people of Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Daro towns to leave for safer places in view of possible flooding there," Hadi Bakhsh Kalhoro, the senior official in Thatta district, told AFP.
"Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Daro towns have an approximate population of 400 000," he said.
The Sindh irrigation minister said waters were also mounting pressure on a protective embankment in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh village, where former leaders Benazir Bhutto and her father, as well as her two younger brothers, are buried.
"We have strengthened the embankment because we don't want mausoleums of our martyrs to be flooded," the provincial minister, Saifullah Dharejo, told AFP.
The United Nations 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.
1000s still stranded
Authorities were also battling to save the city of Shahdadkot from surging waters after most of its 100 000 residents had been moved to safety.
Rescuers safely evacuated 90% of people from the nearby flooded town of Qubo Saeed Khan. Efforts were being made, however, to rescue thousands of others stranded in at least 25 villages surrounding the town.
"We are using helicopters and naval boats to evacuate these people," local administration official Yaseen Shar told AFP.
In Washington, which has put Pakistan on the front line of efforts to beat back the Taliban in Afghanistan, a US official said Pakistani Taliban were planning to attack foreign aid workers engaged in the relief effort.
US officials: No hostilities encountered
"According to information available to the US government, Tehreek-e-Taliban plans to conduct attacks against foreigners participating in the ongoing flood relief operations in Pakistan," the official told AFP.
"Tehreek-e-Taliban also may be making plans to attack federal and provincial ministers in Islamabad," the official warned.
The Pakistani Taliban has previously denounced all foreign aid for victims of the country's catastrophic flooding.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban faction is a key architect of extremist violence that has killed more than 3 580 people across Pakistan in three years.
However, US officials say they have encountered no hostilities in flying aid to stricken parts of Pakistan, where anti-Americanism runs deep.
- SAPA