More Flooding in Pakistan - over 17 million people affected

[bowerbird]

This is bigger than the Indian Ocean Tsunami and the Haiti earthquake combined. We cannot conceive of so many people being affected but it is a huge proportion of one of the most densely populated counties on Earth.

Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing areas of southern Pakistan as rising floodwaters breached more defences and inundated towns.

For nearly a month torrential monsoon rains have triggered massive floods, moving steadily from north to south in Pakistan, affecting a fifth of the volatile country and 17 million of its 167 million people.

Southern Sindh is the worst-affected province. Out of its 23 districts, 19 have so far been ravaged by floods, a statement by the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Friday.

"More than seven million people have been displaced in Sindh since August 3, one million only in the past two days," provincial relief commissioner Ghulam Ali Pasha said.

Exodus as floods menace more Pakistan towns - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

This is a vast human tragedy if disease reaches epidemic proportions from this we may see a disaster unlike that ever seen before

 

[24107]

Alongside the human toll it's taking, it's probably also doing a number on Pakistan's economy( i don't know how good a shape it was in before).