Floods devastate Pakistan
Karachi - Despite the devastation wreaked by the floods last week, Marie Stopes Society (MSS) in Pakistan is continuing to provide much needed health services in many of the affected areas.
MSS immediately responded by setting up four emergency medical camps in some of the worst struck areas. Teams of health providers are offering life saving health services, including reproductive health, to affected women and their families. To respond to the enormous need, MSS has drafted in other team members from less badly affected areas to help. So far, relief packages have been distributed to hundreds of people at the four camps and Direct Relief International is now airlifting US$335,000 in medical materials to MSS to help even more people in the medical camps.
Five MSS health centres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) have been badly damaged and the one in Nowshera completely destroyed. Others centres have been closed temporarily. In addition, many of its team members have been made homeless by the floods and lost all of their possessions. In Sukkur, two team members were trapped for a time on the roof of the centre there as flood waters rose.
The floods are the worst to hit the country in 80 years, and most badly hit areas include Charsadda, Swat, Peshawer, D.I.Khan and Nowshera. In the Punjab, Rajan pur, Layyah, Muzafargarh and Rahimyar Khan, districts have also been affected. The UN estimates that between 4 - 6 million people have been affected by the floods and continuing heavy rain is hampering relief efforts.