UN appeals for more helicopters to fly aid to marooned flood survivors / 800,000 Still Stranded

[Turborama]

Source: APP

he United Nations Tuesday appealed for 40 additional helicopters to deliver humanitarian aid to an estimated 800,000 flood-affected Pakistani people who are stranded in areas inaccessible by land.“These unprecedented floods pose unprecedented logistical challenges, and this requires an extraordinary effort by the international community,” said John Holmes, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Meanwhile, A UN spokesman said that the crisis resulting from the catastrophic floods in Pakistan remains under-funded. The United Nations, he said, looks forwards to more contributions, taking into account the magnitude of the destruction.

Flood waters have washed away roads and bridges, cutting off some of the flooded areas from the rest of the country. Humanitarian agencies have expressed particular concern over access problems in the Swat Valley of the north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, as well as in the mountainous areas of Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir further east.

In parts of the country’s central and southern provinces of Punjab and Sindh, where the Indus River has breached its banks, several locations have also been surrounded by water and are currently unreachable by road. “In northern areas that are cut off, markets are short of vital supplies, and prices are rising sharply,” said Marcus Prior, spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP). “People are in need of food staples to survive (and) there is currently no other way to reach these flood victims, other than by helicopter,” he added.

Read more: http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114471&Itemid=2

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UN says 800,000 cut off by floods

ISLAMABAD (August 25 2010 (3 hours ago)

Floods have isolated about 800,000 people in Pakistan who are now only reachable by air and aid workers need at least 40 more helicopters to ferry lifesaving aid to the increasingly desperate people, the United Nations said. The appeal Tuesday was an indication of the massive problems facing the relief effort in Pakistan more than three weeks after the floods hit the country, affecting more than 17 million people and raising concerns about possible social unrest and political instability.

“These unprecedented floods pose unprecedented logistical challenges, and this requires an extraordinary effort by the international community,” said John Holmes, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

Earlier, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said hundreds of health facilities had been damaged and tens of thousands of medical workers displaced and the country’s chief meteorologist warned that it would be two weeks until the Indus River — the focus of the flooding still sweeping through the country — returns to normal levels.

Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry said high tides in the Arabian Sea would slow the drainage of the Indus into it, but that those tides would begin changing Wednesday. He said the Indus would reach peak flood stage late this week. “The flood situation is not yet over,” Chaudhry said.

Read more: http://www.aaj.tv/2010/08/un-says-800000-cut-off-by-floods/

No land to stand: Aerial video of flood, Pakistan under water
Recovering from the devastating floods still battering Pakistan will take at least 3 years, president Asif Ali Zardari has said. The floods that began nearly a month ago with hammering monsoon rains in the northwest have affected more than 17 million people, the UN estimates. Most of the 1,500 deaths occurred early in the flooding, but the crisis still is growing.

Raw Video from RT Dated August 24: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLtTrGjyrBY

Also posted in the videos forum: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x498446

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Kick

[aquart]

2. What next?

Can they go back and build there, where they had their homes and farms? Or is the topsoil gone? Was this extraordinary or will it flood like this next year? Or the year after?

I know the immediate desperate need requires all the focus and the aid. But what happens next?

[BeFree]

8. Yes. No. Maybe, who knows?

Yes they will go back and build there. It is their home.

The flood actually replenishes the topsoil. Crops could be much better for several years.

River plains flood. Sometimes regularly. Seems this one is the first major in 80 years. But with climate change, who knows when the next flood will be?

So what happens next is crops are replanted, houses rebuilt - maybe a little higher - and life goes on.

[OhioChick]

3. Thanks for posting updates daily...

It's appreciated.

K&R

[Turborama]

5. I wish I didn't have to

But someone has to do it, otherwise this developing humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions will fall into the memory hole.

According to the NYT piece below: "only one million of the estimated six million people in need have received emergency shelter."

That means 5 MILLION people are living out in the open and not getting any sustenance.


Thanks for the thanks and the K&R, it's reassuring to know that it's appreciated.

[Turborama]

4. NYT: 800,000 in Pakistan Reachable Only by Air, U.N. Says

By SALMAN MASOOD
Published: August 25, 2010

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — More rain threatened Pakistan on Wednesday as aid workers pleaded for more help and helicopters to reach hundreds of thousands of people isolated by record floods.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department forecast thundershowers and occasional heavy rain into Friday in the central Punjab Province, northern Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province and Kashmir.

On Tuesday, the United Nations said 800,000 people could be reached only by air, and called for 40 more helicopters from the international community to help ship aid to people isolated by the flooding. “These unprecedented floods pose unprecedented logistical challenges, and this requires an extraordinary effort by the international community”, John Holmes, the United Nation’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, said in a prepared statement.

Reinforcing its call for more helicopters, the United Nations cited the destruction of access roads and bridges in Pakistan’s north, particularly the Swat Valley in Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa, in the Gilgit-Baltistan region and the Pakistani-administered region of Kashmir. The flooding also has isolated people in the country’s Punjab and Sindh provinces, according to World Food Program, a United Nations agency that specializes in food aid to areas affected by crises.

More details and embedded links: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/world/asia/26pstan.html?_r=1&hp

[sabrina 1]

14. 40 Helicopters doesn't seem like a lot. You'd think

between all the countries in the world they would have been there already.

I hope they get them before it's too late.

[Turborama]

6. Sky News article & video, some more photos and link to a large map

UN Needs 40 More Helicopters In Pakistan
7:59am UK, Wednesday 25 August , 2010

Jo Couzens, Sky News Online

The United Nations has said it needs at least 40 more helicopters to help reach an estimated 800,000 people who have been cut off by the floods in Pakistan. The UN appeal was an indication of the massive problems facing the relief effort, more than three weeks after the floods hit the country. "These unprecedented floods pose unprecedented logistical challenges, and this requires an extraordinary effort by the international community," John Holmes, UNunder-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said.

The disaster is also raising concerns about exacerbating social unrest and political instability, as the nation struggles with an ongoing insurgency.

In Shadad Kot, in Sindh province, authorities are increasingly worried that even the 10 miles of new levees soldiers have built may not

=snip=

Around 90% of Shadad Kot's 350,000 residents have already fled the city and many have also left Qambar and other nearby towns.
On the eastern side of the city, levees were under pressure from nine-foot high floodwaters, said Yaseen Shar, a top administrative official.

High tides in the Arabian Sea have hampered drainage of the Indus River and are expected to hamper flood relief until for days to come.

Full article & video: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Pakistan-Braces-For-More-Floods-As-IMF-Talks-Underway-And-UN-Asks-For-40-Helicopters/Article/201008415703924?lpos=World_News_Second_World_News_Article_Teaser_Region_1&lid=ARTICLE_15703924_Pakistan_Braces_For_More_Floods_As_IMF_Talks_Underway_And_UN_Asks_For_40_Helicopters

Map: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=108338968222534721484.00048e8e3a7cfddfad329&t=h&ll=27.737023,68.049316&spn=1.944717,2.191772&z=8&source=embed

[OhioChick]

7. What sick ass unrec's threads about dying people????

Terrible.

[Rhiannon12866]

11. K&R.

I think we both know... :( Dupa. x(

[OhioChick]

12. Yes and that's pathetic

:(

[Rhiannon12866]

13. This overwhelming tragedy needs more exposure, not less...

And my word means the same as yours, different language. ;)

[ihavenobias]

9. Kick n/t

[Brother Buzz]

10. Swedish helicopters are too occupied chasing naked German women

Naked German women evade Swedish chopper

By Lester Haines

6th August 2010 09:22 GMT

Keen Swedish cops deployed a helicopter and sniffer dogs last weekend after three clothes-light German women got lost in the woods.

The naturist trio, aged 40, 50 and 56, set off at 4pm Sunday on a butt-naked jaunt from their holiday cottage by Långasjön lake, outside Karlshamn in the south of the country.

Pals called for assistance when they failed to return, and police mobilised a search operation.

Sadly, they were deprived of the pleasure of recounting over a few beers how their chopper had moved in on the birthday-suited Teutonics, since the wanderers eventually made their own way back to safety at 10:30pm.

They told officers they'd gone astray shortly after departure, and had spent the last hour of their ramble "groping around in the dark".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/06/german_women/