Inadequate flood relief taking 15 to 20 lives in Sindh every day
SUKKUR: The government as well as its humanitarian departments have failed in providing quick and adequate relief to the districts of Sindh that were worst affected by recent floods.
Millions of displaced people are still without shelter, and diseases are taking lives of 15 to 20 people every day in the province. These facts were stated in a report titled “Flood 2012 Situation Analysis — Gaps and Issues” prepared by the People’s Commission on Floods (PACF), a network of flood affected communities, their representatives and civil society activists.
The report was released here on Wednesday. According to the report the government and its specific agencies, the NDMA, the PDMAs and the DDMs, miserably failed in providing early warning on heavy rains and floods in Jacobabad and Kashmore districts of Sindh, and the local communities found themselves in the midst of rains and floods all of a sudden.
According to the report the scale of disaster preparedness in those and other districts of Sindh was so low and so unserious that with the flashes of heavy rains in some districts the working in the local district administration and related government departments ground to a halt, leaving the affected communities without any relief for four to five days immediately after the calamity.
According to the PACF report, despite warnings from different sources about heavy rains and floods, the Sindh government miserably failed in releasing disaster preparedness and relief funds to the district governments in time.
Due to lack of clarity about the change in the local bodies systems and lack of funding the district governments watched the situation as silent spectators as rains and floods affected millions of people, killing more than 200 in Sindh.
Eventually, funds amounting to Rs339 million were released to the thirteen affected districts by the Relief Department, but the delay had already taken its toll.
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