The spectacular remains of a 5,000-year-old city and the grandiose mausoleum where the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is buried are directly in the path of the rampaging floods in Pakistan, officials have warned.
The floods swallowed up fresh areas of Pakistan over the weekend, as the government said 20 million people were now affected by the disaster. A case of cholera was confirmed, raising the spectre of an outbreak of the disease, with thousands of those affected by the floods showing the symptoms of acute watery diarrhoea.
A new tide of floodwater was reported at Sukkur, in the southern province of Sindh, as the deluge from fresh rain in the north reached lower regions of the country.
Today the president, Asif Ali Zardari, said a two-year campaign was required to deal with the damage, while the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, after flying in to visit ravaged areas, said he had never seen such devastation.
"This has been a heart-wrenching day for me. I will never forget the destruction and suffering I have witnessed today. In the past I have witnessed many natural disasters around the world, but nothing like this.
"I'm here to send a message to the world: these unprecedented floods require an unprecedented response. The world must stand with the people of Pakistan."
The floodwaters are now at the town of Larkana, in Sindh, threatening the nearby Bhutto family mausoleum, a huge marble structure topped with domes. Also at risk is the sprawling Mohenjo-daro, one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus valley civilisation, a Unesco world heritage site built around 2,500BC.
Rediscovered in 1922, Mohenjo-daro was one of the most sophisticated cities of its time. The water is closing in from the river Indus and from a breach in an irrigation canal further north.
The Bhutto mausoleum, which resembles the Taj Mahal and can be seen from miles around, is in the village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, a place of political and religious pilgrimage. It contains the remains of Benazir Bhutto, assassinated by Islamic extremists in 2007, her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first elected PM who was hanged by a military dictatorship in 1977, and her two murdered brothers.
"Unfortunately the water is going in that direction [towards Garhi Khuda Bakhsh and Mohenjo-daro]," the Sindh provincial irrigation minister, Saifullah Dharejo, said. "We'll try everything possible to save these sites."
Today the flood waters spread further from the Indus, drowning the town of Dera Allah Yar and the surrounding area in the Jaffarabad district of Baluchistan province, which had been inhabited by about 300,000 people. The area was said to be under 6ft of water.
The Dera Allah Yar situation highlighted internal tensions over the floods. There were claims that authorities across the provincial border in Sindh had deliberately diverted water towards Baluchistan, leading to an armed confrontation between officials and tribesmen of the two provinces.
The government and opposition joined hands over the weekend, saying they would put politics aside to fight the calamity together. The move could help stave off rumours that the military is considering intervening to overthrow Zardari's government in the face of the crisis.
A neutral commission is to be set up, headed by people whom the public are expected to have confidence in, to manage the crisis and raise money from within the country. Pakistanis are reluctant to contribute to government-run aid efforts, fearing that the funds will be siphoned off through corruption.
The floods have left 6 million people facing starvation. The UN said 875,000 homes had been damaged or destroyed. Many areas had all their crops washed away. It is thought 1,600 people have been killed. The death toll could rise rapidly from disease and hunger. Anecdotal evidence is surfacing of young children dying from diarrhoea and malnutrition.
No comments:
Post a Comment