Pakistani embassy urges residents ‘to remain engaged with relief efforts’
The Pakistani embassy in Doha yesterday urged Qatar residents to remain engaged with the flood relief efforts in the central-south Asian country, calling the disaster “pretty serious and constantly evolving”.
Monsoon flash floods, which lashed Pakistan in the beginning of August, have devastated vast swathes of the country in one of the biggest global natural disasters in recent history.
“The flood situation remains pretty serious and is constantly evolving. Presently the death toll stands at 1,514 with 2,054 people injured, 1mn houses damaged and a massive 20mn population directly affected,” Zahid Nasrullah, the deputy head at the mission and head of chancery, said.
“We urge the 83,000-strong Pakistani community in Qatar as well as the people of Qatar to continuously remain engaged with the situation and to continue their donations either in cash or kind,” Nasrullah said.
According to him, Pakistan is satisfied with the initial response of the international community which has pledged $815mn in response to the US request for $460mn at a special plenary session of the UN General Assembly held in mid-August. A resolution was adopted at the session with the General Assembly committing its solidarity with Pakistan.
“The State of Qatar has bilaterally extended an assistance of $400,000 and coupled with the sincere efforts of Qatar Charity, Qatar Red Crescent and other local charities, the gesture has been immensely helpful,” Nasrullah said.
Locally, Pakistanis and their well-wishers have been ramping up efforts since the scale of the disaster became obvious with millions of rupees already been raised and relief items shipped.
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the country’s national carrier, has agreed to carry relief materials for free.
“Although a full list of required items is available at the Pakistani National Disaster Management Authority’s website (ndma.gov.pk), what is needed most is emergency shelters, medicine, nutrients and water sanitation kits,” Nasrullah said, while requesting donors to follow the guidelines.
“Right now Pakistan remains in the relief phase of the exercise with recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation following,” the diplomat added.
According to him, the World Bank will be carrying out a damage assessment report following which an international donors’ conference will be held in Islamabad “soon”.
“We realise that there is a chance of donors’ fatigue after back-to-back global natural disasters including Haiti. We salute those who have come forward at this difficult time,” Nasrullah said.
On a question of centralising community efforts under the embassy, the official said the mission could not act as a crisis management cell, pointing to the local charities as good channels of engagement.
source: http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=381805...
