Note: The following appeal is now closed. You can support our ongoing work by donating to the Canadian Red Cross
The news of the growing scale of the Pakistan flood made it clear to the Red Cross that we would have a huge task on our hands. I am currently in Pakistan to see the scope of this calamity for myself.
A long flight from Ottawa took me to Islamabad for a series of meetings with my counterparts of the Pakistan Red Crescent society and a detailed flood response update at their modern Disaster Management Centre. These meetings are critical in ensuring a coordinated approach and to assess the recovery needs following the initial emergency.
On my second next day, a convoy of vehicles was assembled and we headed out early in the morning to begin the first part of a 5-day mission into three of the impacted zones. We would be travelling from the northwest down to the south of the country, moving in the same direction as the flood wave.
The first part of the trip was a 2-day drive up into the Swat Valley to oversee one of the thousands of relief distributions being carried out by the Pakistan Red Crescent across the flood-affected areas.
My initial impression as we drove to our first destination was the enormity of this disaster. Swat Valley is only one of many parts of the country being inundated by this slow-motion tsunami. As we travelled up the highway that snakes along the Indus River, we could see down below us along the river’s shoreline only gravel and mud where before there had been towns and villages, some of them hundreds of years old, now wiped off the map by the raging torrent.
We passed destroyed bridges, washed out roads, newly-created lakes and kilometers of sodden ground. We had been hearing about the logistic challenges of delivering relief supplies to the hundreds of thousands of stranded villagers who had fled to higher ground, but here we were seeing for ourselves the challenges ahead.
After eight hours of driving, we arrived at the end of the road – literally. A major bridge on this main highway had just days before met the same fate as all the others we had seen. The road stopped abruptly at a jagged edge and down below was the angry Indus roaring past.
We were headed to the small village of Tirat to visit a Pakistan Red Crescent health team, funded by donations to the Canadian Red Cross. The only way to cross the Indus River was on a quickly-constructed cable car strung up on a thin steel cable between the two shores.
Nothing can ever compare to that experience of dangling high above the Indus River as villagers on the other side pulled on the rope that carried our precarious little 2-seater cage from one shore to the other.
It was another 45 minutes of driving and walking on the other side before we arrived at the local Red Crescent branch in Tirat. In sweltering 36 degree Celsius heat, these dedicated workers were continuing to provide basic health care services in extremely difficult conditions.
On the return trip to the river’s edge, the car that had taken us up to the Red Crescent branch got stuck in the muddy track. By the time we were out of the mire, Iftar – the Ramadan evening break fast – had begun. While we waited for the cable pull-cart volunteers to return, generous villagers brought us fruit and pakoras. The return run back over the Indus was that much more interesting under an almost-full moon.
Despite our ongoing efforts, the scale of the disaster is massive and more help is urgently needed. The strength of the Red Cross network is our community based approach, the Pakistan Red Crescent has been working around the clock and the Canadian Red Cross is proud to support their continued efforts.