Pakistanis vent anger as millions wait for flood aid

Pakistani flood victims, burning straw and waving sticks, blocked a highway yesterday to demand government help as aid agencies warned relief was too slow to arrive for millions without clean water, food and homes.

Public anger has grown in the two weeks of floods, highlighting potential political troubles for an unpopular government overwhelmed by a disaster that has disrupted the lives of at least a tenth of its 170 million population.

Hundreds of villages across Pakistan in an area roughly the size of Italy have been marooned, highways have been cut in half and thousands of homeless people have been forced to set up tarpaulin tents along the side of roads.

But aid has failed to keep pace with the rising river waters.

"The speed with which the situation is deteriorating is frightening," Neva Khan, Oxfam's country director in Pakistan, said.

"Communities desperately need clean water, latrines and hygiene supplies, but the resources currently available cover only a fraction of what is required."

Dozens of stick-wielding men and a few women tried to block five lanes of traffic outside Sukkur, a major town in the southern province of Sindh. Villagers set fire to straw and threatened to hit approaching cars with sticks.

Protester Kalu Mangiani said government officials only came to hand out food when media were present.

"They are throwing packets of food to us like we are dogs. They are making people fight for these packets," he said.

On Sunday night, hundreds of villagers burnt tyres and chanted "down with the government" in Punjab province.

"We are dying of hunger here. No-one has shown up to comfort us," said Hafiz Shabbir, a protester in Kot Addu.

Up to 1,600 people have been killed, and two million made homeless in Pakistan's worst floods in decades.

Only a quarter of the $459 million aid needed for initial relief has arrived, according to the United Nations.

That contrasts with the United States giving at least $1 billion in military aid last year to its regional ally to battle militants.

Authorities yesterday forecast a brief respite in rains.

Water levels in the Indus River feeding Pakistan's plains have fallen in Punjab, the country's most populous and worst-hit province, although flooding would stay high where embankments were breached. In Sindh province, however, the flooding could get worse.

"In Punjab, the water level in the river is falling and in the next four to five days ...there will be scattered rains, but they are not flood-producing," Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, director general of the country's meteorological office, said.

Despite a possible break in heavy rains, many families had little hope of returning to their homes.

"We only hear the water is receding but there is still more and more water in our village," said Mansha Bozdar, 45, whose village borders the Sanawan town in southern Punjab. "It seems if it will never stop."

Meanwhile, the UN has reported the first case of cholera amid fears of disease outbreaks.

"As humanitarians we certainly are on high alert because we have to be able to be prepared for any kind of development, said UN spokesman Maurizio Giuliano. "We don't know which way it's going to go. More flooding is certainly possible."