MUHAMMAD QASIM’S forehead settled into a deep frown as he gestured at the collapsed homes, noting the sodden bedding and other household items lying on the churned ground as if they had been spat out of the surrounding buildings. “It’s a ghost town,” he sighed. “Almost everyone has fled. Why would they stay? We were poor before but now look at us – we have nothing.”
Floodwaters, which last week reached almost to ground-floor ceilings in Nowshera, have mostly receded, but their effects will last for months, if not years. The town nestles in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province), which has borne the brunt of torrential rains that resulted in the worst flooding Pakistan has witnessed in its six decades in existence.
The UN has estimated at least one-fifth of the country is under water, but the scale of the destruction seems far greater. More than 14 million people have been affected, of whom six million are children.
The number of dead is estimated at more than 1,600. Although the death toll so far is lower, the number affected amounts to more than the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, the Asian tsunami and this year’s earthquake in Haiti combined.
But in Nowshera alone, there is talk of several thousands more dead. “A lot of people are still missing,” said Qasim, stroking his neatly trimmed grey beard. “We fear that many more got pulled in under the mud.” For many of those, like Qasim, who have made a tentative return to assess their losses, the mood is one of quiet desperation laced with anger at the government.
“They have done nothing for us yet,” he said. “My butcher’s shop is no more, and even if it had survived, there are no cattle to slaughter. They have all been washed away. I have five children – what am I going to do?”
The men standing around him murmured in sympathy. “No one from the government has even set foot here,” added one.
For others the sense of desperation is more acute. “Whenever anybody comes here with food aid, people run after it like dogs,” said Qasim.
At a nearby bridge, volunteers from a Pakistani charity doled out cooked rice from the back of a truck. One volunteer waved a long cane at those who pressed too close.
Humanitarian agencies, including Concern and Trócaire, are struggling to cope with the scale of the crisis. The damage to roads, bridges and other infrastructure means many of the worst hit in Pakistan’s more remote corners remain cut off. They rely on aid dropped from army helicopters.
The UN has appealed for almost $460 million in aid, but the total pledged stands at only $157.8 million.
“The scale of response is still not commensurate with the scale of the disaster,” the UN warned.