Six months later, Pakistan’s flood disaster threatens to worsen

The crisis in Pakistan is far from over and could get worse, international aid agency Oxfam warned today, six months after the nation’s devastating floods.

In a report, “Six months into the floods: Resetting Pakistan’s Priorities” the agency warned that millions of people were still in dire need and that the situation could deteriorate further. The report says that although the aid effort has reached millions, it has struggled to match the immense scale of human need.

Oxfam says that although Pakistan’s floods are the biggest emergency of recent times with more than 18 million people affected, the funding for the response has been woefully slow. The UN appeal for $2bn to rebuild Pakistan remains only 56 percent funded.

Six months after the rains, hundreds of thousands remain in camps and thousands are living in tents beside their destroyed homes. Sub-zero winter temperatures have increased the incidence of chest infections including influenza and pneumonia, with over 200,000 cases reported in the second week of January alone. In the south, swathes of land – both homesteads and agricultural – remain under contaminated water and Oxfam is concerned that already worrying pre-flood malnutrition rates  have risen.

Neva Khan, head of Oxfam in Pakistan, said:

“Six months on millions of people are still facing flood water, shivering in temporary shelters and struggling to find food. Oxfam is currently helping nearly 1.9 million people – one of our biggest programs worldwide – but this is dwarfed by the number of people who are in need. The aid community has done a tremendous amount – but given the immense scale of this disaster we have only scratched the surface of human need.” 

Oxfam is urging the government of Pakistan to extend the emergency period until peoples’ needs are met. The Pakistan government is due to stop emergency relief operations in most areas from 31st January 2011, but Oxfam warned that this could put at risk large numbers of people who still need assistance.

Oxfam urges the Pakistan government and the international community to learn the lessons of this disaster and seize the chance to re-build Pakistan better, specifically by providing land for landless labourers, providing better facilities for girls in schools and investing more in disaster management  down to the local level. Many landless farmers are scared to go home due to debts owed to their landlords, often for the crops that were washed away in the flood.

Still a chance to step out of the disaster spiral, says agency

Khan continued:

“Pakistan could salvage a new beginning from the debris of this disaster. If the country invests in disaster risk reduction then the devastation wrought by this disaster could be consigned to history. With bold steps - like redistributing land - a fairer and stronger country could emerge. We must seize this chance to address the causes of inequality and poverty to build back a better and more resilient Pakistan.”

Oxfam also warned that action was needed now to prevent a secondary food crisis. Agriculture was particularly hard hit in the flood with over 2.2 million hectares of crops lost. Most farmers missed the last planting season in November, some because their land was still underwater, but others because they did not get seeds and other agricultural supplies in time. The April farming season is likely to be missed unless urgent action is taken now to rehabilitate the fields that can be planted and distribute seeds and tools to farmers.

Oxfam also said that a disaster-prone state like Pakistan should have been better prepared to deliver an adequate and timely response, and criticises the aid community for focusing on Khyber Pakhtunkwa province in the north, at the expense of Sindh province in the south. Oxfam was in Sindh province from the outset, but many aid agencies did not extend their coverage there until 2-3 months later.

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Read the report: Six months into the floods: Resetting Pakistan’s priorities through reconstruction

Oxfam's humanitarian response in Pakistan Floods