It's never too late

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

The world is now familiar with the tragic story beginning in July 2010, relentless monsoon downpours caused the most severe flooding in the history of Pakistan, a country already crippled with crises. The freak deluge displaced millions, washed away entire villages, broke the spines of bridges and devastated crops.

The images of the recent floods in Pakistan, described by the UN as the worst disaster in human history, have been harrowing and the constantly blooming statistics have been nearly impossible to comprehend. Whereas estimated number of loss of life and property are impossibly high. And regrettable is that officially reported figures by the Ministry of Water and Power's Federal Flood Commission (FFC) are far considerably lower.

The United Nations estimates Pakistan needs aid commitments of at least US $460 million over the next few months to tide over the crisis. So far, it has received only a few percent of the required. Aid is not flowing to Pakistan the same way it has flowed to other countries that also suffered natural disasters.

According to an environmental and agricultural expert 'this period of floods and intense rains will be followed by droughts. While mentioning never ending selfless efforts and contributions of Pakistan Army jawans along with National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) work, which although depends or relies upon army forces somehow or the other, important to notice is unpreparedness of government machinery in showing response to the crises. Moreover, when the lives and livelihood of 20 million people were being engulfed by devastating floods, President of the country Asif Ali Zardari was on a pleasure trip to France and Britain.

UN spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs in Geneva was not diplomatic in blaming Pakistan's "image deficit" among western public opinion for hampering aid pledges. According to her, 'Pakistan is among the countries that are poorly financed, like Yemen, which is the result of the image deficit of Pakistan among western public opinion.' Much has been said about the Pakistani president's apathy towards the crises in the country.

The response of the world's worst natural catastrophe in recent history has been far below expectations with more focus on fears of insurgency than concern for the humanitarian crises. This is in stark contrast to the swift response to the Haiti earthquake disaster in January, which saw eminent people such as former United States president Bill Clinton leading the relief effort.

The floods and the affected nation have now taken a backseat because the government has much more interesting stuff to deal with... Angelina Julie's report to UN states that "Pakistan's elite was not interested in rescuing flood victims. Everybody was just trying to take snaps with me. Even PM called his family from Lahore on government expenses for photo session."