Pakistan's Flood Victims Return to Devastation, Shortages of Construction Materials and Threat of Winter
As flood waters recede and hundreds of thousands of displaced
families return to devastated towns and villages in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh, the government and aid agencies face
massive challenges in meeting their shelter needs ahead of the
upcoming winter.
According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA),
some 20.36 million people have been affected by the floods, with
over 1.9 million houses damaged or destroyed. Over 75 per cent of
the overall affected population is in Sindh and Punjab.
This week the IOM-led cluster of over 70 aid agencies providing
shelter and the NDMA agreed a flexible "early recovery" shelter
strategy combining "core shelter" reconstruction of damaged and
destroyed homes based on individual needs and "transitional
shelter" solutions for families unable to return to their land.
But implementation will require funding and procurement of
shelter and construction materials on an unprecedented scale. The
Revised Pakistan Floods Emergency Response Plan (PFERP) appeal put
out by the UN on 17 September calls for some USD 700 million to be
spent on shelter projects over the next 12 months.
Assessments carried out by Oxfam, the NDMA, the World Bank and
Asian Development Bank, are also beginning to gauge Pakistan's
capacity to meet the huge demand for construction materials needed
to implement the strategy.
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An Emergency Market Mapping Analysis (EMMA) carried out by Oxfam
in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh over the past two weeks
looked at the availability and cost of local bamboo and timber for
reconstruction and concluded that while prices had risen 10 per
cent to 15 per cent, the materials would be available for the next
3 to 4 months.
Subsequently it predicted shortages, delays and price increases
and recommended that the government and agencies investigate
procurement abroad for the medium and long term.
The NDMA is also investigating scaling up key Pakistani
construction industries to meet demand and says that the government
may have to facilitate more imports if demand cannot be met in
country.
The World Bank and Asian Development Bank are also conducting a
damage and needs assessment which will also look at market
capacity, including brick making. The results are due in
mid-October.
Returning families face other challenges in addition to lack of
shelter. Most of the victims in KPK and Punjab have returned home
to secure their land, to try to salvage any possessions that may
have survived the floods, and to replant their fields in time for
the winter harvest. But they have largely lost all their seeds and
farm implements in the deluge and have yet to receive
replacements.
The government has now started to hand out so-called Watan cards
that entitle flood-affected families to a PKR 20,000 (USD 250)
payment. But reports suggest that that less than 5 per cent of the
affected population has been processed to date and more than one
card distribution has triggered rioting by desperate crowds.
In KPK, where the winter is fast approaching, families face the
added threat of plummeting temperatures with the onset of winter
later this month. Parts of the province often experience snowfall
by early November.
Shelter agencies are racing to deliver shelter materials and
insulation, together with warm clothing, to help to create one
"warm room" for every family to survive the winter.
Meanwhile, the international response to help the victims of
Pakistan's worst-ever natural disaster remains slow. UNOCHA's
Financial Tracking Service indicates that only 31 percent of the
USD 2 billion PFERP appeal is currently funded.
"In-kind donations and funding are still coming in. This week,
IOM handled four aid flights – one from the UK and three from
the US carrying 22,500 USAID plastic sheets, 352 UK shelter kits,
200,000 jerry cans and 600,000 bars of soap. We trucked all of it
to Sindh and Punjab, where the needs are greatest," says IOM
Pakistan Operations Officer Tya Maskun.
"But there are still literally millions of people out there who
have nothing. The sheer scale of this disaster is really beyond
comprehension. For example, shelter cluster agencies have already
managed to reach 450,000 families – that is 3.15 million
people – with emergency shelter. But based on current
government estimates, that is still only about a quarter of the
people who need our help," she adds.
For more information on IOM's activities in Pakistan, to
download IOM funding appeals or to donate to IOM's flood response,
please go to:
"/jahia/Jahia/pakistan/lang/en" target="" title=
"">http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pakistan.
For information on the Emergency Shelter Cluster and the
Shelter Strategy, please go to:
"paragraph-link-no-underline" href="http://www.shelterpakistan.org"
target="_blank" title="">http://www.shelterpakistan.org.
For additional information, please contact:
Saleem Rehmat
IOM Islamabad
Tel: +92.300 856 0341
E-mail:
"mailto:srehmat@iom.int">srehmat@iom.int
or
Chris Lom
Tel: +92.300 852 6357
E-mail:
"mailto:clom@iom.int">clom@iom.int