Red Cross Blogs

Charlie Ashley

Charlie Ashley, British Red Cross representative in Pakistan, reports back on the current floods situation:

1. How bad is the current flooding in Pakistan?

The United Nations rated last year’s floods in Pakistan as the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent history with more people affected than the south-east Asian tsunami and the earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti combined. The most common question being asked about the floods now is ‘is it as bad as last year?’ The simple answer is no, it is not, but the scale of the 2010 floods was unprecedented. The devastation spread across the entire country and more than 18 million people were affected.

For the people of Sindh in southern Pakistan, the area most severely affected by this year’s flooding, the situation is without doubt desperate with 22 out of 23 districts flooded and throughout the country more than five million people are struggling to survive. They have lost their homes, their possessions and their livelihoods and are in urgent need of food, safe water and shelter.

2. This happened last year, why weren’t people more prepared this year?

A great deal of work has been undertaken over the past year to strengthen strategies to prepare people so they will be better able to cope with flooding during the monsoon season.

The government of Pakistan has contingency plans in place to prepare for and respond to flooding in which the Pakistan Red Crescent Society plays an important role. With support from the British government’s UK aid the Pakistan Red Crescent Society in partnership with the British Red Cross has also undertaken a significant preparedness operation over the last few months in anticipation of the monsoon rains, prepositioning emergency relief items close to communities most vulnerable to flooding. This stockpiling of relief items, such as tents, lanterns, jerry cans and tarpaulins has enabled the Pakistan Red Crescent Society to provide basic assistance to flood affected families much sooner than they were able to last year.

In support of the government of Pakistan’s National Disaster Risk Management Strategy the Pakistan Red Crescent Society is also actively involved in delivering emergency response training. It undertakes hazard mapping with communities and raises people’s awareness about the risks they face from flooding, promoting ideas and actions that communities can undertake to better protect themselves.

Making communities really resilient to flooding however will not happen overnight. Even in the UK we are not always as prepared as we would like to be and cannot always cope with the floods or severe weather conditions we experience. In Pakistan many of the people affected by last year’s floods lost everything and have spent the last year struggling to get back on their feet. Their priorities are rebuilding their homes, replanting their devastated crops or earning enough money to send their children to school. While helping them to achieve these aims the Red Cross also tries to promote strategies to reduce risks and helping people to be better prepared to cope with the future, inevitable, disasters.

3. What is the Red Cross doing to help?

The Pakistan Red Crescent is working in co-operation with the government of Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, the United Nations and other aid agencies. It is supported by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and is providing help for 28,000 affected families.

For people that have lost their homes completely, it is distributing family size tents and providing basic supplies such as blankets, sleeping mats, hygiene items and cooking utensils to all those that need them. Food parcels have also been provided to at least 14,370 families.

As a breeding site for mosquitoes the standing water significantly increases the potential for exposure to disease such as dengue, and malaria. Distribution of mosquito nets and repellent therefore also forms a critical part of the response operation.

The Pakistan Red Crescent Society has also set up water treatment plants to provide clean water and its staff and volunteers are delivering messages to the affected communities on safe sanitation and hygiene practices to help reduce the threat of disease outbreaks. The Pakistan Red Crescent health department has also deployed six mobile health units to the affected districts of Badin, Dadu, Larkana, Nawabshah, Jacobabad and Mirpurkhas. So far they have treated over 17,000 patients.

4. Why does the Red Cross need your help?

The monsoon is a yearly occurrence in Pakistan and the country often deals adeptly with incidences of flooding that do not get reported in the UK media. However, for the past two years the scale of the flooding experienced has been beyond the coping capacity of those affected.

This has led to the emergency situation for which Pakistan now needs additional international support to deal with and ensure the large numbers of people affected are helped quickly and given a better chance to recover.

The British Red Cross has launched an emergency appeal to help raise urgently needed funds so that the Pakistan Red Crescent Society can provide assistance to more families. It is inevitable that Pakistan will experience flooding again in the future and quite possibly next year.

The quicker we can get help to people to move past the emergency phase, the sooner they can recover and the more time we will have to better prepare for and limit the future impact of flooding on these most vulnerable communities.

Please support our appeal today and help us to help families who are in a desperate situation.

Images © IFRC