IOM has provided emergency shelter and non food items to 54
families displaced by flooding in Jacobabad district.

Flooding inundated four villages (Nihal Buledi, Haji Khan
Thahem, Shahan Brohi and Akbar Buledi) in Union Council Nawera,
district Jacobabad, northern Sindh, following a breach in the
embankment of Khairthar Canal on 2nd July.

At the request of the district coordination officer, IOM's staff
conducted a rapid assessment and distributed emergency shelter and
non-food items to the affected families.

Each household received two plastic tarpaulins, rope and poles
to help build a temporary shelter, a jerry can to store water and a
kitchen set.

Homes and crops in three of the villages were completely
destroyed by the floods with crops being destroyed in the fourth
village. An estimated 300 people, including around 110 children,
have been displaced by the flooding.

With temperatures reaching upwards of 45 degrees Celsius (113
degrees Fahrenheit) in Jacobabad district, the families are under
great risk from exposure, water borne diseases and snake bites.

As part of IOM's contingency planning for new emergencies
including floods in 2011, emergency shelter and non-food items have
been strategically placed in operational hubs in Sindh and
Punjab.

An IOM humanitarian communications programme is also helping
provincial and district governments develop contingency plans,
including an Early Disaster Warning System (EDWS) in Sindh
province.

"When a crisis happens, the first 48 hours can be critical for
those affected," says Brian Kelly, IOM's Head of Emergency and
Stablization in Pakistan. "The prepositioning of emergency relief
items in our northern Sindh hub allowed us to respond to these
needs in a timely fashion."

IOM is also conducting disaster response and preparedness
trainings in flood-prone districts in Punjab with life jackets
being handed over to the district government in Muzzaffargarh last
week.

These trainings are being expanded to new districts following
lessons learned from the 2010 flood response. Community response
teams trained in Jhang district in July 2010 were able to rescue
around 200 people when floods devastated the province a month
later.

For more information please contact:

Helen Seeger

IOM Islamabad

Tel: +92 (0)308 520 4705

E-mail: "mailto:hseeger@iom.int">hseeger@iom.int