As the appeal for the Pakistan flood victims continues, the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has urged the world to respond to the escalating humanitarian crisis (see BBC). The official number of people affected has increased to 20 million people. After Nature first reported on the crisis (see Pakistan’s floods: is the worst still to come?), there have been fresh flood warnings and the situation for the flood victims appears to be worsening.
In the south-eastern region of the country the population are facing a second surge of floodwaters which continue to swell in Sindh and Balochistan provinces. On 13 August 300,000 people were evacuated from the Jacobabad district, Sindh province. Monitoring the flood waters, the Pakistan Meteorological Department have reported increased inflows and discharge at the Guddu and Sukkur barrages built across the Indus River for controlling irrigation supplies. “It is feared that…..the arrival of second flood wave can create extreme pressure on Sukkur barrage and other irrigation infrastructure around” states the Flood Forecasting Division of the Pakistan Meteorological Department. Embankments also appear to be in a vulnerable condition with some breaching in places.
And despite access to clean water being a top priority in the relief effort, the threat of water-borne disease also seems to be real. “The leading causes of morbidity in flood-affected communities are skin diseases (113,045 cases recorded through medical consultations), acute watery diarrhea (86,671 cases) and respiratory tract infection (83,050 cases).” states the latest UNOCHA Pakistan situation report published on 16 August 2010 from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Pakistan. The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs has also confirmed the first case of cholera in Mingora, a town in the Swat valley, northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. But there appears to be some confusion on the status of cholera cases in the region. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa director-general of health, Sajid Shaheen, would not confirm cases but described the situation as “extremely precarious”. However, water-borne disease is an increasing concern for the millions displaced in the disaster. “Any diarrhoeal disease, cholera or not, is a huge threat and could result in many more deaths,” says Sandy Cairncross, public health engineer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The 16 August UNOCHA Pakistan situation report also states there is a growing risk of malaria, “particularly in Punjab and Sindh there, given the large amounts of stagnant water present.”
And as the flooding continues, there is now building evidence that this could be linked to the heatwave currently hitting Russia. On 13 August, Nature reported that an unusual jet stream was flowing from the north bringing weather instability. This jet stream is in fact connecting the upper atmosphere across areas of Western Europe with Pakistan and Russia, bringing destruction as it snakes across from west to east (see New Scientist and BBC).
Image: Water distribution at a mobile clinic in Utmanzai, North-West Frontier, Pakistan / Ton Koene, Medecins Sans Frontiers