Nigeria Content Online

The military and
other emergency workers struggled against time and nature on Sunday to
reach at least 10,000 people trapped by collapsed bridges and flooded
roads and threatened by rising water brought by the worst monsoon rains
in Pakistan’s history.

The army announced
Sunday night that it had reached up to 20,000 people, but the
government’s response to the disaster – which has already claimed
hundreds of lives – has been widely assailed as slow and inadequate.
Criticism was further fed by a decision by President Asif Zardari,
already deeply unpopular, to leave the country this week for political
talks in Europe.

“We’re out of
bridges, so it’s the necessity of time to reach them by air,” said
Adnan Khan, an official at the Provincial Disaster Management Authority
of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, who called the situation “very
urgent.”

The crisis is
especially catastrophic in Swat, once famed as a tourist valley, where
the army defeated militants last year. Local leaders said at least 900
Swatis have died, and nearly all the bridges that the army built after
last year’s war have collapsed.

Officials said at
least 10,000 people were stranded in Upper Swat and Dir Ismail Khan,
which were inaccessible by road because 40 bridges had fallen. Efforts
were under way to erect temporary spans, but officials were skeptical
that they could be built in time.

Estimates of the
total death toll on Sunday ranged up to 1,100, although the national
government put the figure at 730. The nation’s largest and most
respected private rescue service, the Edhi Foundation, predicted the
death toll would reach 3,000.

The great disparity
in numbers reflects the challenge facing the government and other
emergency workers struggling to reach isolated areas and to gain
reliable information.

Officials said the
deluge was the worst since 1929 – 18 years before Pakistan gained
independence – in what is now the country’s northwest, where water
levels at dams continued to rise.

The growing
frustration with the government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is a large blow
to Islamabad, which is often criticised for being disconnected from the
needs of the people in the province, which represents a pivotal
battleground against the Islamic insurgency.

For the past year,
the government and the military have been engaged in a “hearts and
minds” campaign to restore public services after fighting displaced
more than three million people last year. But reconstruction efforts
have been painfully slow, and the public mood has shifted from
frustrated to furious.

The demanding
relief effort in the coming days and weeks will provide yet another
test for the government to nurture the population in the nation’s
northwest. Last summer, during the mass displacement, Pakistani
authorities refused to allow American officials and planes to deliver
aid to the refugee camp. The authorities did not want to be associated
with their unpopular ally.

In the absence of
effective government aid, hard-line Islamist charities pounced, using
aid to sour public opinion against the war and the United States.

Pakistani TV showed
entire villages under water, and dozens of bridges and roadways ravaged
across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, which has been economically decimated by
terrorism in recent years.

In the village of
Torwali Bahrain in Upper Swat, the market was washed away, leaving more
than 1,200 people with minimal food and no government assistance,
according to the Swat Peace Council, an independent advocacy group.

Adnan Khan, the
provincial disaster official, said it might take up to four days to
reach people cut off without food and drinking water.

The Pakistani
military said it had dispatched more than 30,000 troops to rescue
survivors in boats and, using about 35 helicopters, by air. Officials
said helicopters were delivering food to clusters of people and
returning with small groups of survivors.

The United States said it would offer $10 million for relief, and said it provided 50,000 meals on Sunday.

Many survivors
sought refuge in schools. But just 20 miles from the regional capital,
Peshawar, displaced people were lying along the road without tents,
food or assistance, except for boiled rice from nearby villagers.

A U.N. warehouse
storing rations in Nowshera was under four feet of water, but through
other warehouses, the organization managed to feed about 21,000 people
on Sunday.

Fazl Maula Zahid, a
regional manager at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Swat, said
100,000 acres of soil along the Swat River had been washed out. He said
it would take up to 10 years to restore the fertility of this critical
area that feeds 50,000 people.

“These lands will be changed into desert,” Zahid said. “And you know what kind of plant can be planted in a desert? Nothing!”

“It was a big disaster,” Khan said. “Our infrastructure over the last 50 years has been washed away.”