Floods Force Thousands From Homes in Pakistan
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SUKKUR, Pakistan -- Floodwaters surged deeper into areas of southern Pakistan on Sunday, forcing thousands more people to abandon their homes in haste and flee to higher ground. Attention has now focused on the province of Sindh as the floods that have torn through the length of the country for three weeks finally move toward the Arabian Sea.
Water reached within half a mile of Shadad Kot, a town of 150,000 people, on Sunday afternoon, and several nearby villages were already cut off when a protective embankment began to give way, Yasin Shar, the district coordination officer of Shadad Kot, said by telephone. Most of the population had been evacuated and more were still leaving, he said. "We are trying to save the embankment and keep on repairing wherever it is damaged, but the water is flowing with a lot of pressure," Mr. Shar said. "We hope the embankment won't break. We are praying."
Nearly five million people have been displaced from the worst flooding ever recorded in Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands are being housed in orderly tented camps set up in army compounds, schools and other public buildings, but thousands more are living on roadsides and canal embankments, spreading out mats under the trees or making shade over the simple rope beds they brought with them.
The town of Sukkur is overflowing with an influx of displaced people. On the edge of the town, a group of 15 families with scores of children are camped along the Dadu Canal. Their mood is edgy, and they race in a horde after any vehicle that slows in the hope that it bears food or assistance. One woman showed her fractured arm, the result of a tussle for food.
"People are looting, people run after trucks snatching things," said Shad Mohammad, 28, a shopkeeper and father of five, who came here after his town, Ghospur, was flooded 15 days ago. "People come, sometimes the government comes, or charities with food. Sometimes you get something, sometimes not."
The children are often hungry and crying, Mr. Mohammad said. "We don't know what will happen to us, we have lost everything," he said. "We have nothing here, just the clothes we are wearing."
He and others spoke of their anxiety that because Sindh is so low-lying, it will take months for the waters to subside, and for them to return home. And they know they will return to nothing. The water was up to their necks, so their mud-brick houses will have collapsed and their animals drowned, they said. Surviving would be difficult without assistance, and few expressed confidence they would receive much.
First Published August 23, 2010 2:01 am
