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Sukkur, Pakistan - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world to provide more aid to flood ravaged Pakistan Sunday as 20 million people homeless grew increasingly desperate, and new torrents flooded villages.

The survivors fight for food being handed out by a rescue vehicle near the town of Sukkur in Sindh province hit hard, ripping each other clothes and causing chaos so that the distribution had to be abandoned, according to a reporter Associated Press in place.

“The impatience of the people has deprived us of what little food he had come,” said Shaukat Ali, a flood victim waiting for food.

Pakistan worst ever floods have killed nearly 1,500 people and damaged 7.9 million hectares (3.2 million hectares) of cotton, sugarcane and wheat crops. The International Monetary Fund has warned of dire economic consequences for a country already dependent on foreign aid to keep its economy afloat and a key to the US-led war against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The UN has appealed for an initial $ 460 million to provide relief, but only 20 percent has been given.

UN chief Ban visited the country for talks with government leaders and see the flood zone.

“I’m here to see what remains to be done and urge the international community to accelerate assistance to the people of Pakistan,” he said.

Waters five feet (1.5 meters) deep washed through Derra Allah Yar, a city of 300,000 inhabitants on the border between the provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan, said Salim Khoso government officials. Some 200,000 have fled the city.

“We feed them, but do not know how,” he said.

But in a televised speech to the nation on Saturday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said 20 million are now homeless. He did not elaborate, and it was unclear how many of those people were briefly forced to leave their homes and those who had lost their homes altogether.

Authorities said most flood peaks were sliding down the river Indus and other rivers in the southern province of Sindh, flooding hundreds of villages. While local charities and international agencies have helped hundreds of thousands of people with food, water, shelter and medical treatment, the magnitude of the disaster has caused many millions of people have received little or no assistance.

The United Nations has said that the increasing rate of diarrhea among survivors. Cholera, which can spread rapidly after the floods and other disasters, had been identified in the northwest, where the floods first hit more than two weeks ago, after exceptionally heavy monsoon rains.

“We are here as beggars,” said Mukhtar Ali, a 45 year old accountant who lives on the side of a road along with thousands of other people. “The last food we received was a small packet of rice and 15 yesterday we shared.”

The United States has so far donated more to the relief effort, at least 70 million U.S. dollars, and sent military helicopters to rescue stranded people and get food and water. Washington hopes that the assistance will support a central regional ally and help improve its image in the country - however minor - that seeks its support in the battle against militancy

Two other U.S. Navy MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters arrived in Pakistan on Saturday to support flood relief efforts, the U.S. State Department said. This brings to seven the total number of aircraft in Pakistan by the USS Peleliu, which is located in international waters in the Arabian Sea.

In the northwest of the country, U.S. missiles killed 12 people Saturday in a Pakistani tribal region filled with Islamic rebels determined to drive Western troops from neighboring Afghanistan. The strike was the first in several weeks.

The reputation of the Government of Pakistan - already shaky to begin with - has suffered during the crisis, especially after President Asif Ali Zardari went ahead with a trip to Europe as the crisis was unfolding. Visited the victims twice since returning.

By utumpor on Aug 18, 2010 at 4:36 am