No respite from Pakistan floods one month on

After spending three weeks in the cold mountainous environment of the Swat valley, I arrived in the hot and humid climate of Multan to work alongside Save the Children teams working in the worst affected districts of Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan.

The floods arrived here a week after the showers began in late July. There were reports of nearly 300,000 people displaced overnight.There was also news of entire villages on the highways and in government schools of Muzaffargarh and Multan.

However, none of the reports came close to the reality on ground.

Destruction in Muzaffargarh
The sight of makeshift shelters and tents begins at the border of Muzaffargarh and Multan districts. Long lines of men, women and children are found stranded on both sides of the busy traffic. Besides those displaced from remote areas, people of nearby villages are also found on the highway; their dilapidated homes visible a few metres away. It is mind-boggling to consider the populations affected by the floods.

For example, the district of Muzaffargarh has four tehsils [administrative areas] out of which two, Muzaffargarh and Kot Addo, are completely under water. The tehsil of Kot Addo alone has 28 union councils and each union council has more than 4,000 people. Thus, the lives of approximately 112,000 men, women and children have been disrupted in Kot Addo alone.

These vast numbers of people do not have food, shelter, clothing, access to health care and have completely lost their livelihoods due to the floods.

They will certainly require assistance in the coming months, if not years, to not only resettle and establish their lives but also to rejuvenate their income generating activities.

Relief to Brahimwala
Save the Children is the first humanitarian organisation that has provided food rations comprising of wheat, lentils, cooking oil, micronutrient biscuits as well as tents, jerry cans, water buckets and blankets to people who have lost their homes in district Muzaffargarh.

During one such distribution to the village of Brahimwala, I learned how the villagers had departed from their homes in haste to reach safe ground 25 kilometres (15 miles) away in the city of Muzaffargarh.

They were no registration points or information centres available for the displaced to receive aid. They spent many days under the open sun before finding temporary shelters on open ground, roads and rapidly set up camps. Food and drinking water distribution was irregular and chaos erupted each time a truck arrived with provisions.

Unfortunately, the urban poor who live in shanty towns of Muzaffargarh and Multan had joined the displaced and fought to grab whatever donations they could lay their hands on.

In the village of Sandewala, three women were crushed by a mob while chasing a food rations truck. As soon as the waters receded displaced people returned to their homes.

Although, most villages are still submerged with the flood’s deluge of putrid water and mud, families have pitched up tents alongside roads and canals. Water in Brahimwala has withdrawn, demolishing each and every house in the village.

The conditions are appalling but with nowhere else to turn, people are living amidst mud, flies and the remains of their houses squashed on the ground.

The murky flood waters and searing heat has worsened the dismal conditions and increased the prevalence of diseases like diarrhoea, malaria, skin and respiratory infections.

Save the Children has provided food rations to 2000 families and will reach another 13,000 families in southern Punjab within the next two weeks. Eight health teams are working in the area and four more will begin operating by the end of this week. Child friendly spaces for children to play and learn, have been established. Each and every member of Save the Children realizes that an intense and continued support is essential to normalize the lives of flood affected people in Punjab.

For more information on the work of Save the Children:
www.savethechildren.org.uk/pakistanfloods