President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday called upon the nation and the international community to donate generously in cash and kind to the government-approved funds and registered organisations, including the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, for speedy relief to the flood affectees.
The president made the remarks while visiting the relief camps set up in Amangarh, Nowshera and Risalpur Degree College.
He was given briefings by the district administration and Pakistan Air Force (PAF) about the rescue and relief efforts to mitigate the sufferings of flood victims in the Nowshera region.
Alvi said he had wanted to visit the area soon after the floods; however, he did not do so to let the administration fully focus on the relief efforts.
He commended the civil administration and armed forces for their rescue and relief efforts and underlined the need for speedy compensation for those families who had lost their dear ones and whose property had been damaged during the floods.
During his visit to PAF Academy Asghar Khan Risalpur, the president was briefed about the flood relief efforts of the Pakistan Air Force. He was informed that the PAF was providing food, medicine and shelter to over 2,000 IDPs (internally displaced persons) in its camp in the academy, and had treated over 25,000 patients across Pakistan.
It was further informed that 100 relief sorties were made, in addition to distributing 175,000 dry ration packs and over 1,000 tents to the flood victims.
Speaking on the occasion, Alvi endorsed the joint flash appeal launched by the United Nations and the government of Pakistan in Islamabad and Geneva for seeking the international community’s help for rescue and relief operations in the backdrop of devastating rains, floods and landslides that had impacted more than 33 million people in different parts of the country.
The president expressed grief and sorrow on the deaths of over 1,100 people across the country, including 350 children, and injury to more than 1,900 others. The loss of over 700,000 livestock and crops over two million acres of land had deprived a sizable population of their only source of livelihood, he added.
He regretted that the damage to over one million houses across the country had rendered millions of people homeless.
The president expressed his full confidence in the philanthropic spirit of Pakistanis and the international community and expressed the hope that the nation would not leave the flood victims alone in these testing times and would leave no stone unturned to mitigate the sufferings of flood affectees until their complete rehabilitation.
He stressed the need to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the national and international aid was delivered in a systematic, organised and transparent manner to the flood affectees.
He also underlined the need to take all necessary steps for building delay-action dams for enhancing the water storage capacity of the country to avoid losses from floods in future.
“Although Pakistan contributes a minimal proportion to the global greenhouse gas emissions yet we are suffering from super floods triggered due to the changing climate and the global warming resulting from carbon emissions worldwide,” the president said. It was the collective responsibility of the international community and the people of Pakistan to help mitigate the negative fallouts of climate change, he asserted.
