Day 3 - Getting the troubling facts at the provincial branch in Karachi

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As I continue my inspection of the areas of Pakistan most impacted by the flooding, two themes persist: the increasing scale of devastation, and the consistent professionalism of the Red Cross response. 

After our 2-day road trip into Swat Valley to visit a Pakistan Red Crescent health clinic and a relief distribution site - both generously funded by Canadian Red Cross donations -  we flew down to Karachi from Islamabad to begin the next part of our trip into Sindh province in southern Pakistan.

The scale of devastation we witnessed was immense. The flood crest was flowing southward, and we were headed into a region where a 6-metre surge was destroying hundreds of villages and displacing tens of thousands of people.

In Karachi, the first segment of a two-part flight to Sukkur in the heart of the flood zone, we stopped in at the Sindh provincial branch of the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PCRS) to get a briefing on their emergency response operations.

I am consistently impressed by the professionalism of the PRCS operations. The briefing room at this small provincial branch was buzzing with activity, and the Disaster Management coordinator gave us a detailed description of the impact of the flooding and their ongoing response.

Some highlights from that session stand out in my mind. In previous monsoon seasons, there could be flooding in four or five districts of Sindh, but this was the first time in living memory that the entire province was affected. Reports coming in were indicating that cattle – an important commodity in the local economy – were drowning at a rate of 20,000 head a day.

The Indus River is normally one kilometer across at its maximum width. It was now spread over 60 kilometers in some areas. The “kachcha” – the flood plain – had been untouched by flooding of this level for such a long time that a dense clustering of farms and villages had sprung up along this extremely fertile land. Most of these settlements were now paying nature’s long-term price.

The people of Sindh province are greatly in need of assistance. In fact, of the PRCS national commitment to the government to provide assistance to two million people across Pakistan, 75,000 of the beneficiary families are in Sindh province.

A local saying was shared with us that we were about to experience for ourselves. For Pakistanis, the Indus River is king. It goes where it wants. What this means is that, with the labyrinth of tributaries and irrigation canals woven across the landscape, the swollen river was finding weak spots in the reinforcement walls along the banks.  This was unpredictably breaching into the surrounding countryside beyond the flood plain.

Villagers far removed from the Indus itself had been given advance warning by the government that their homes might be inundated.  This was a warning they had received in previous years during the monsoon season, but because evacuation had never been necessary, they did not make preparations to vacate their homes until the flood waters finally approached.