Relief Delivery Picks Up in Pakistan as New Areas Submerged, Shelter Needs Soar
Aid agencies, including IOM, are racing to get more emergency
shelter to displaced flood victims as more villages and towns
become submerged under floodwaters in the south of the country.
According Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority
(NDMA), the number of homes damaged or destroyed in Sindh province
alone has increased to 462,000 from 176,000 last week.
"The level of destruction and displacement caused by floods is
unprecedented. Emergency Shelter Cluster agencies have already
delivered aid to more than a million people and our procurement
pipeline has tripled over the last week to provide shelter and
household relief items for another 2.4 million. But we will need
more," says IOM Pakistan Emergency Response Manager Brian
Kelly.
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The Emergency Shelter Cluster of 40 international and national
aid agencies, which is coordinated by IOM and works closely with
the NDMA, has already distributed over 109,500 tents and 72,000
plastic sheets to provide shelter for some 145,500 families.
It has ordered and is waiting for delivery of another 111,000
tents and over 465,000 plastic sheets to provide shelter for
another 344,000 families.
But new estimates from the NDMA put the total number of
households damaged or destroyed at 1.17 million across the country.
This would mean that some 8 million people are either homeless or
displaced and could be in need of shelter support from the
government or international donors.
The new figures follow a massive new evacuation of people from
Shahdad Kot and Thatta districts of Sindh province, as floodwaters
move south, submerging towns and villages in their path.
"The latest official figures suggest that the level of
destruction in Sindh could be similar to that reported in Punjab,
where an estimated 500,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed.
But this disaster is still far from over and the number of families
affected could still increase significantly," says Emergency
Shelter Cluster Information Manager Wan Sophonpanich.
Tens of thousands of families who were evacuated from
flood-affected districts of Sindh, including Jacobabad, Kashmore,
Shikarpur, Khairpur, Ghotki and Larkana, are now living on roads,
under bridges and on higher ground in Sukkur city, which has not
been affected by the floods. Others have escaped to Karachi,
Hyderabad and Balochistan province.
For more information on IOM's activities in Pakistan and flood
relief pictures, please go to:
"paragraph-link-no-underline" href="/jahia/Jahia/pakistan" target=
"" title="">http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pakistan.
For additional information please contact:
Saleem Rehmat
IOM Islamabad
Tel: +92.3008560341
E-mail:
"mailto:srehmat@iom.int">srehmat@iom.int
or
Chris Lom
Tel: +66.819275215
E-mail:
"mailto:clom@iom.int">clom@iom.int