Three months of Pakistan Floods: Beginning of the REAL disaster

“Why does suddenness brings urgency and importance? Isn’t human sympathy sustainable when it comes to natural disasters”? Asks a flood survivor in Thatta district as relief fades away along with the days that pass. Now when the flood survivors are going to see the REAL disaster government agencies, civil society, media and other concerned agencies feel like their part of the job is already finished? Is it true that another wave of deaths or another disaster is needed in order to stir aid once again?

Three months have passed now when the grand flood disaster struck Pakistan, effecting about 20 million of population in the country. The time when a chaos spread over the normal human setup in the affected areas and led to spread that same chaos among the government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, media and international departments working in the country. Organizations showered upon their relief support for the flood victims but now when some time passed away and the waters are finally receding and people are moving back to their lives, there seems to be an existence of utter fulfillment with the same agencies once ready to help. They now think their job is done but this in truth is the time when the REAL disaster is going to strike, when millions of helpless people stand alone to gain back the lifestyle they lost to unwarned waves.

We at PDI Pakistan operate in the very districts where floods almost took away everything along with the hopes of people living there. Our relief efforts are now turning to recovery and in the very moments we are witnessing huge number of families coming back to their villages, but life certainly isn’t the same…

I could almost feel my heart throb out of my chest as I glanced around the surroundings where I once proudly stood and declared as my home. My house, my small patch of land and everything that I owned vanished with this disaster….I might as well not have come back if this piece of land where I lived wasn’t so dear to me….because there is nothing left….nothing at all…
~Sidique, head of the family recently migrated back to their village

There are days when we wait for a flour sack to be provided just so we could feed our eight kids, says the mother of small children from a camp in Tando Jam, making something to eat along the raw bread is out of question. No one comes to our help, and now I and my husband go out of the camp till night to search for people sympathetic enough to feed us and we hardly find help.

Passing through the highways that links the main districts along the Indus river, it’s a scene where most of us would want to stop and think again if our perception towards relief support are accurate enough? Because out there are people lonely, helpless and without any support to start again what they lost. A family like the thousands who ran away when floods struck is unable to go back to their village as they don’t have money to provide for their transport as they share:

Our children watch longingly to the vehicles that pass along this road, some cry constantly to be back to our homes and our dear lands but we are helpless. We are stuck where nor can we get something to eat, neither can we own the place we live. We are lost….

But the question yet to be asked is simply who is accountable? Because if aid comes when people actually see what’s going on with the flood survivors then Media seems to have stopped and found other “interesting” issues and things to highlight, or if aid comes when interested parties want to provide support and there are authorities available to deliver that aid then NGOs are back to their own agendas. Or if aid comes when government is willing to invest, then in regards to Pakistani government we might as well not have any comments, providing the right support for the flood survivors is out of the question in that case.

The final questions stands out to you all, are YOU as an individual ready to accept that support only means to provide immediate relief? Or you are willing to extend your help till people gain back control on their lives when they return back to homes. You are our final hope to seek sustainable assistance for flood survivors, please donate your support today for the flood survivors on this link http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/help-pdi-in-relief-and-recovery-of-... or share this article with your network and become the light of hope for some searching eyes that still wait.....

PDI team

To know more about PDI Pakistan log on to www.pdi.org.pk or read our blog http://pdipakistan.blogspot.com/