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| July 4, 2005 | Monday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 26, 1426 |
NWFP seeks donors’ help for flood victims
PESHAWAR, July 3: The NWFP government has appealed to donor and charity organisations to extend help to hundreds of families rendered homeless by floods in five districts of the province.
“Thousands of people marooned in flood-hit areas are in dire need of shelter, food, drinking water and medicines. We appeal to the world community to help displaced families at this critical juncture”, senior minister Sirajul Haq said at a hurriedly called press conference here on Sunday.
He criticised the federal government and UN agencies for ignoring the flood-hit people of the province.
“We think the federal government and donors would come to help when these people drown and their bodies float on flood waters”, he added.
He said that a huge population was still under threat but the federal government and the UN agencies did not take it seriously.
He said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, during his visit to the affected areas, announced Rs100 million for irrigation schemes but ignored the displaced people.
He said rehabilitation of the flood-hit people and areas required approximately Rs5 billion and the provincial government was unable to generate such a huge amount.
He said that unprecedented floods had inundated about 400,000 acres of land in Peshawar, Nowshera, Charsadda, Swat and Chitral districts while many houses were still under threat due to continuous floods.
He said that provincial Irrigation Department, Frontier Highway Authority and other line departments had mobilised their resources and manpower to help the flood victims.
The minister said that the water level was rising in all rivers of the province and three cities —Nowshera, Mingora and Dera Ismail Khan — were on the verge of devastatation.
When asked about the federal government’s plan to construct Kalabagh dam on Indus River, Mr Siraj said: “the level of flood should open eyes of the advocates of the project; there is no need for further comments”.
He said that Wapda released water from Tarbela dam without informing the Indus River System Authority and it caused back-channel flow in river Kabul at Nowshera.
He said that release of water from Tarbela reservoir would increase threat for Nowshera and Dera Ismail Khan.
The water level would further increase in river Kabul and Swat due to monsoon season, he added.
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