Flood-hit Pakistan faces food shortages: Shahbaz

Pakistan is grappling with food shortages ater deadly floods let the impoverished country’s agriculture belt underwater, the prime minister told the Turkish president by phone, as authorities scaled up efforts Monday to deliver food, tents and other items.

Shahbaz Sharif spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan overnight to thank Turkey for dispatching food, tents and medicine by 12 military aircrat, four trains and Turkish Red Crescent trucks.

The International Rescue Commitee estimated that the floods have damaged more than 3.6 million acres of crops in Pakistan.

A government statement said Sharif briefed Erdogan about the government’s relief activities and sought assistance from Turkey in overcoming the “food shortage.”

Sharif also sought help from Turkey on reconstruction work in the flood-hit areas.

More than 660,000 people, including women and children, are living at relief camps and in makeshit homes ater floods damaged their homes across the country and forced them to

Pak PM talks with Erdogan on phone, seeks assistance from Turkey in overcoming the food shortage; Islamabad races to keep floodwaters out of power station that supplies millions

move to safer places. Pakistan, the country’s military, UN agencies and local charities are providing food to these flood victims.

Pakistan heavily relies on its agriculture and occasionally exports its surplus wheat to Afghanistan and other countries. Now it is in talks to import badly needed wheat and vegetables, including to people not directly affected by floods.

Authorities in Pakistan are scrambling to protect a vital power station supplying electricity to millions of people against a growing threat of flooding, officials said on Monday.

Floods from record monsoon rains and glacial melt in the mountainous north have affected 33 million people and killed almost 1,400, washing away homes, roads, railways, livestock and crops, in damage estimated at $30 billion.

Both the government and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres have blamed climate change for the extreme weather that led to the flooding that submerged huge areas of the nation of 220 million.

The electricity station in the district of Dadu in the southern province of Sindh, one of the country’s worst affected areas, supplies power to six provincial districts.

Troops were busy strengthening a dike built in front of the station, a visit to the site showed on Sunday.

“All preventive measures have been taken already to save the grid in case any flooding happens,” Syed Murtaza Ali Shah, a top district official, told media on Monday.

The comment followed orders from Shahbaz Sharif, reported by state broadcaster Radio Pakistan, to ensure the 500kv power station did not get flooded.

On Monday, a dust storm in nearby Sehwan town uprooted hundreds of tents pitched at roadsides by people made homeless by the floods, as a fresh spell of rains expected in the middle of the month begins to set in, officials said.

Until last week, floodwater was covering around a third of Pakistan, including the country’s agriculture belt in eastern Punjab and southern Sundh provinces which are the main food basket. Initially, Pakistan said the floods caused $10 billion in damages, but authorities say the damages are far greater than the initial estimates.

It has forced Pakistan and the United Nations to urge the international community to send more help.

In response, UN agencies and various countries, including the United States, have sent more than 60 planeloads of aid. Since last week, Washington has sent three military planes to deliver food.

Three more US military planes carrying aid landed in Pakistan’s worst flood-hit southern Sindh province Monday, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. So far ten such flights have arrived in the area.

Washington days ago set up a humanitarian air bridge to flood-ravaged Pakistan to deliver aid through 20 flights, which will arrive in Pakistan before Sept.16. The US authorities also plan to distribute cash among needy people.

Guterres has called on the world to stop “sleepwalking” through the dangerous environmental crisis. He assured Sharif in a meeting with him that he will do his best to highlight the ordeal of Pakistanis facing floods.