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Floods Hit 13.8 Million Pakistanis As China Toll Mounts To 337 - Lahore_Real_Estate - 08-10-2010 12:21 PM
An estimated 13.8 million people are reeling under unprecedented floods in Pakistan requiring immediate aid to save the victims from starvation.
Based on the assessment made by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday that the Pakistani floods had affected more people than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
"It is a looming human disaster. We do not know as yet but in the short term it will need hundreds of millions of dollars and in the long term it will be billions of dollars," media quoted OCHA spokesman Maurizio Giuliano as saying.
The floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains had killed more than 1,600 people besides causing extensive damage to property in the north-western province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa alone. The floods had wrought havoc in the central province of Punjab and Sindh in the south.
Continued bad weather hampered efforts to airlift flood victims in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Monday as tens of thousands faced food shortages.
An Army spokesman said around 40 military helicopters deployed for rescue and relief operations were grounded because of bad weather.
Landslides triggered by fresh rainfall blocked several roads and floods washed away more bridges in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The situation in the province's Malkand region was deteriorating further as hundreds of villages and hamlets were isolated, reports said.
According to an U.N. estimate, more than 600,000 hectares of crops were destroyed in Punjab province alone, severely affecting the country's food production.
Meanwhile, death toll from landslides in north-west China rose to 337, with 1,148 people missing, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The landslides in Zhouqu county in Gansu province were triggered by torrential rains that hit the area on Saturday.
More than 4,500 soldiers, fire-fighters and medical staff have been sent to the area, as well as helicopters and other aircraft for search and rescue operations, Xinhua said.