UN says Pakistan floods worse than 2004 tsunami

Breitbart.com 08/09/2010 17:33

The United Nations said Monday that massive floods in Pakistan had affected 13.8 million people and eclipsed the scale of the devastating 2004 tsunami, as anger mounted among survivors.

The Pakistani government and UN officials have appealed for more urgent relief efforts to cope with the country's worst ever floods, with President Asif Ali Zardari due to return home after a heavily criticised European tour.

The entire northwestern Swat valley, where Pakistan fought a major campaign to flush out Taliban insurgents last year, was cut off at the weekend as were parts of the country's breadbasket in Punjab and Sindh.

"This disaster is worse than the tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the Haiti earthquake," Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told AFP.

He said the 13.8 million affected outstripped the more than three million hit by the 2005 earthquake, five million in the 2004 tsunami and the three million affected by the Haiti earthquake in January this year.

The United Nations estimates 1,600 people have died in Pakistan's floods and the Pakistani government has confirmed 1,243 deaths. About 220,000 were killed by the December 26, 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia.

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