ISLAMABAD: Flood-ravaged Pakistan said it has received international aid of 300 million dollars but the flow of money remained slow, and survivors lashed out at Islamabad for failing to move faster to help.
Torrential monsoon rain triggered catastrophic floods which have affected 20 million people in three weeks, wiping out villages, farmland, and infrastructure and killing at least 1,400 people in the nation’s worst natural disaster.
The United Nations last week launched an immediate appeal for 460 million dollars, but it said Tuesday that funding so far was just 40 percent of the target and aid agencies are calling for pledges to be turned into cash.
Zamir Akram, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva said the country had received more immediate multilateral relief aid through the UN and direct bilateral aid totaling about 301 million dollars (235 million euros).
The World Bank also agreed Tuesday to give Islamabad a 900-million-dollar loan, warning that the disaster’s impact on the economy was expected to be "huge" and likely to take years to put right.
A string of nations ranging from Afghanistan and Turkey to the United States and Saudi Arabia have pledged millions in cash and relief as the UN warned more money was needed to stave off a "second wave of death" from disease and food shortages.
But flood survivors crammed into sweltering tent cities or camping out along roadsides have hit out furiously against Pakistan’s weak civilian government for not doing enough.
Britain, which is emerging from a diplomatic row with Pakistan, branded the aid effort "lamentable" and charities said Pakistan was suffering from an "image deficit" partly because of perceived links to terror.
The nuclear-armed country is on the frontline of the US-led fight against Al-Qaeda, where the military is locked in battle with Taliban in the northwest on the border with Afghanistan.
Embattled President Asif Ali Zardari is due in Russia Wednesday for a regional security summit with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
He is expected to fly in to the Black Sea resort of Sochi for only a few hours after facing heavy criticism at home for failing to cut short a visit to Europe to tackle the crisis.
Zardari has told aid agencies it would take years to recover from what he called "the worst calamity of the world history".
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has also warned that the disaster could play into the hands of insurgents.
"We don’t know what impact it’s having on the insurgents… the idea that this flood would essentially come on top of a very corrosive insurgency is extremely worrisome," said US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it fears Pakistan is on the brink of a "second wave of death" unless more funds materialize, with up to 3.5 million children at risk from water-borne diseases.
Islamabad has confirmed around 1,400 deaths, but WHO Representative Guido Sabatinelli said he suspected the toll was much higher.
"In any case it will be much higher but it’s difficult to predict. We’re talking about 20 million people affected today and there is no infrastructure and no health centers that can register the deaths," he told AFP.
About six million people are deemed to be at risk of deadly water-borne diseases, with typhoid, hepatitis and cholera major concerns.
"Two million dollars are needed every day to provide water, this is not sustainable. We don’t have two million dollars a day," said Daniel Toole, the regional director for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
"I would ask urgently the international community to change pledges into cheques. We need an urgent effort," he said.
Akram said reconstruction in northern areas alone could cost 2.5 billion dollars and said the floods had ravaged an area "the size of England."
Experts have urged the government to move quickly, warning that the massive economic losses could fan unemployment and social unrest.
Agriculture accounts for 20 percent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product.
"The peasants are our lifeline, so by not helping them we are in fact committing suicide," Ibrahim Mughal, who heads the independent Agri Forum organization, told AFP.
UNICEF estimates that over 5,500 schools and 1,300 health centers have been either damaged or destroyed and that nearly 5,000 schools are now housing displaced families.
