As flood waters pour into Pakistan's heartland of Punjab and Sindh,
more emergency shelter aid is reaching the victims. But the numbers
displaced by the disaster – 20 million and rising in an area
the size of Italy – far exceeds the combined capacity of the
government and aid agencies to provide immediate relief.

According to the Emergency Shelter Cluster of 40 local and
international aid agencies working with the government to deliver
emergency shelter and other non-food relief items to flood victims,
98,000 tents and 72,000 plastic sheets have now been distributed to
provide shelter for 134,000 families.

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The cluster, which is coordinated by IOM and includes UN
agencies, ICRC/IFRC and local and international NGOs, has ordered
another 77,000 tents and 281,000 plastic sheets, which are expected
to arrive in the coming days and weeks, to provide shelter for
another 218,000 families.

But according to the National Disaster Management Authority
(NADM) at least 891,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. This
means that another 488,000 homeless families may need additional
help – either from the government or from international
donors.

The greatest current need is in Punjab, where 484,000 families
are still waiting for shelter aid, and in Sindh, where 176,000
homeless families have not yet received tents or plastic sheet to
shield them from the ongoing rain and occasional blazing sun.

Another 24,000 families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), 5,000 in
Baluchistan , and nearly 5,000 in Pakistan Administered Kashmir
(PAK) are in the same position, according to Emergency Shelter
Cluster Information Manager Wan Sophonpanich.

"One of the major constraints, in addition to access problems
caused by washed out roads and bridges, is procurement of tents and
shelter grade plastic sheet in Pakistan. There is not enough of
either in country and bringing them in from abroad in these huge
quantities takes time," she notes.

The government and cluster agencies may have also underestimated
the extent of the damage in densely populated Punjab and Sindh when
they appealed for USD 105 million from the international community
last week to provide tents, plastic sheet, and other non-food
relief items such as blankets and kitchen sets for some 300,000
families over three months.

"The government is leading the flood response and the appeal
aims to define how the shelter cluster agencies can best support
its efforts. It is based on the needs we knew about and the
capacity that we had on the ground almost two weeks ago. But this
disaster is still evolving into something of unprecedented
proportions and so the scale of the international response is still
a work in progress," says IOM Pakistan Emergency Response Manager
Brian Kelly.

For more information on the Emergency Shelter Cluster and the
latest data please go to:  "paragraph-link-no-underline" href=
"https://sites.google.com/site/shelterpak2010/" target="_blank"
title="">https://sites.google.com/site/shelterpak2010/.

For additional information please contact:

Chris Lom

IOM Islamabad

Tel. +92.3085204684

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

or

Saleem Rehmat

Tel. +92.3008560341

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