Since July 21st, Pakistan has been affected by some of the worst floods it has experienced in decades, leaving more than 17 million people affected by this tragedy and more than 1 million houses either damaged or destroyed, of which 500,000 are in the Punjab province. As the flood waters began to slowly recede in the Northern provinces, rivers continued to swell to unprecedented levels and travel southwards by way of the Indus River.

Responding to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis Pakistan witnessed in 2008, NGOs including ACTED have been present in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province, situated in the North of Pakistan, providing significant emergency assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in spontaneous settlements and host families (followed by emergency and early recovery operations in the return areas). While most NGOs were already present in the KPK province when the tragic floods hit the region which enabled them to be quickly operational, the Punjab province is suffering from a lack of humanitarian actors. Within Punjab, Dera Ghazi Khan and Mianwali are some of the worst-affected districts. There, entire villages have been wrecked by the torrential rains, swallowed up by rivers in spate that have turned into wrenching torrents sweeping away houses, crops and livestock. The massive floods have also swept away key infrastructures in numerous locations, including bridges, roads and access routes, isolating entire villages.

To date, among the affected population around 483,000 households are extremely vulnerable and urgently need food, water, shelter and medicinal assistance. ACTED has started emergency food distributions providing 232 tons to 2,703 households. Overall, ACTED will distribute food rations (flour, oil and energetic biscuits) for one month to 7,000 households. Furthermore, as nearly all of the standing crops have been destroyed in the affected areas, further food assistance will be needed until the coming wheat harvest in April/May 2011 as affected families are left without resources to meet their food need.

Ongoing Alliance2015 assessments in Punjab

Ten assessment teams from Alliance2015 formed by People In Need, Cesvi, Welthungerhilfe and ACTED, have started working in the area on the 23rd of August, when flood waters began to recede, allowing partial access to the locations. To date, approximately half of the villages closest to the river were still inundated, up to 1.2 meters deep.

So far the vast majority of the flood affected people assessed have moved from their villages, settling in the open air in makeshift shelters. While children and women are usually left on a higher ground, the remaining men have started to go back to their villages to determine the extent of damages to their households.

People are left with hardly any possessions

Most families were reported as lacking appropriate equipment and materials to cook, but also essential means to store sufficient water. Indeed half of the people assessed so far by the teams of Alliance2015 are living with less than 5 liters of water per day. Sources of water were tube-wells, majority of which were either damaged or destroyed in the floods, forcing more than 50% of the people to use the river as their main source of water.

The impact of the floods still continues and may increase the number of the affected population. Until now it is estimated that 5 to 8 million people in Punjab have been affected by the disaster. ACTED and Alliance2015’s partners are working actively in the field trying to provide the most important items needed by the people: tarpaulins, blankets, shelters kits and jerry cans.

The cooperation of the partners of Alliance2015 is proving to be effective in such an emergency context, enabling the delivery of relief to the flood-affected people throughout Pakistan (see map below).

>> Click here to discover further ACTED's ongoing relief operations in Pakistan.

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