Pakistan Floods Now Threaten to Submerge to South Sindh Region

The military in Pakistan have already used helicopters to drop food aid in the regions of Sunawa in the Punjab region and Kot Addu also.

However a flood barrier in the southern region of Sindh is now threatening to overflow and has reached dangerously high levels. The Sukkur Barrage, should it overflow, will affect as many people in the south region as it already has in the more northerly region of Khyber and Punjab.  Many of those who have survived are angry at officials in the government over the slow pace of aid getting through to those who have survived and some officials have been attacked. 

The disaster is the worst in the region since 1930 and the death roll thus far stands at around 1750. Incredibly some 14 million people have been affected by the floods and all the signs are things will get worse as the monsoon rains have not eased. On Monday August 9, 2010 a government initiative to spread the word via radio on how to get aid and avoid the many diseases that floods like these inevitably cause.  The flood waters have raged from the north through the agricultural lands of the Punjab and are now at the gateway to the Sindh region blazing a trail of more than 610 miles. The flow of water at the Sukkur Barrage was recorded at around 1.45m cubic feet every second. Anything over 0.9m cubic feet per second is considered to be fatal. The Upper Sindh region is already flooded and 2,100,000 have fled the area.

Two TV channels in Pakistan have been blocked for reasons unknown. In Karachi and the Sindh area viewers found access to the channels censored following criticism of President Zardari according to critics. He is currently on tour in England but was heckled by Pakistani ex-pats in Birmingham and a shoe was allegedly thrown at the president by one heckler although this incident has been denied by the authorities.

The whole Swat Valley region has been under water for several days now and weather is still so poor in the region that helicopters attempting to deliver aid have not been able to fly over for fear they will perish in the unsafe conditions.

The UN has predicted that several billions of dollars will be needed in aid.