FLOOD WATER swept into Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, yesterday, swallowing crops, swamping hundreds of villages and threatening to burst a dam guarding the only region to have escaped damage.
What began as a disaster focused on mountainous north-western areas has broadened into a nationwide catastrophe that has killed an estimated 1,500 people and sparked anger at President Asif Ali Zardari’s fragile government.
In a reminder of the multiple crises besieging Pakistan, at least four people were killed yesterday, including a senior security officer, in a suicide bomb attack in the city of Peshawar, a hub for the relief effort. The killing appeared to be the latest in a campaign of bombings waged by insurgents against government targets.
The floods have compounded the pressure on an administration beset by a Taliban insurgency, a prolonged economic and political crisis, and sectarian and ethnic tensions that erupted into violence this week in the port city of Karachi.
Mr Zardari has faced fierce criticism at home for pressing on with a visit to France and the UK this week at the height of the disaster in Pakistan, where many of an estimated three million people displaced by the floods are furious at his government’s failure to help them. Survivors picked through wrecked houses yesterday in search of food, or crossed torrents using ropes.
The floods threaten to weaken Mr Zardari’s government at a time when the Obama administration is banking on Pakistan’s help to turn around the US military’s war against insurgents in Afghanistan.
Reports that Islamic charities suspected of ties to militants have stepped in to assist flood victims in some areas have underscored the challenge posed by extremist groups to the nuclear-armed state.
The scope of the crisis widened as water flowed into Punjab, Pakistan’s agricultural heartland, where hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to abandon homes and farms.
Waters swirling from the burst banks of the river Indus hit the town of Kot Addu in Punjab yesterday. Nicki Bennett, a senior UN humanitarian official, said there were fears the bloated river would burst a barrage downstream at Sukkur in Sindh province.
“[The waters have] gone through Punjab and left destruction in their wake,” Ms Bennett said. “Now we will see what they will do in Sindh.” An estimated one million people in Sindh might be at risk of flooding.
The province is home to Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial capital, although the city of 16 million people does not appear to be directly threatened. Many businesses were closed yesterday after violence triggered by the assassination of a provincial legislator killed at least 60 people.
Relief workers are scrambling to prevent hunger and outbreaks of disease. An estimated 1.8 million people will need food aid over the next few months in the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province alone, according to the World Food Programme. Monsoon rains have eased, allowing emergency workers to reach thousands of people. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)
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