Relief agency urges help for Pakistan flooding victims

The humanitarian agency, which has its European headquarters in the Capital, said that an onset of cholera and lack of clean drinking water could see the death toll rise quickly.

Mercy Corps currently has around 350 disaster relief and aid workers on the ground in Swat valley and Sindh province and other areas which have been devastated by recent heavy flooding.

Mervyn Lee, executive director of the agency's European headquarters at Sciennes, today echoed comments made by Pakistan's leaders that the floods will have the effect of a "slow tsunami", and urged residents in the Lothians to give what they can to help Mercy Corps maintain the supply of vital aid to the front lines.

Mr Lee, who visited the same communities that have been struck by the floods last month and is to fly out to the same regions later this week, warned that even once the humanitarian situation is brought under control, the land that many farmers lived off will take months or years to yield crops once again.

He said: "This is an unprecedented natural disaster on a scale which is difficult to imagine. Pakistan is a country with so many problems which were there before these floods arose - problems of the economy, insecurity, problems of criminality. They had a bad air crash at the end of July and then along came these floods.

"We're working in Swat valley and were also working in Sindh province where 30 to 40 years ago people claimed the savannah grasslands and with their bare hands cleared the land, made fields and made it into a very productive agricultural area.

"All that has now gone underwater. The land that has been damaged will have to be restored, in some cases, even after the waters go, it will be 14-16 months before those people will be able to get back to getting a crop to harvest. That's not to mention their houses and cattle and everything they own has been taken away.

"All of that has been taken from them now and they are clinging on to the edge for survival. I use that literally, some of them are just on high ground, they have a bit of plastic, a few possessions they've rescued and they're literally holding on until the waters go down."

Since the floods struck in July, around 1500 people have been killed and 4.5 million have been displaced from their homes.

Mr Lee added that the time of year that the floods took place would make the impact even worse for the crop cycle.

He said: "This is completely the worst time of year for this to happen. It's not the right planting time for when the land does recover and beyond that winter will set in and people living in exposed areas will be affected.

"All the work we do relies on people kindly donating what they can. The funds we receive don't pass through any institution or government hands and they go straight to the Mercy Corps team in Pakistan.

"We have a great team which have been working on projects in Pakistan for 26 years and they're being reinforced by various technical experts from around the world to support them.

"From Mercy Corps' point of view, we're just at the beginning of what will be an extended operation. At the moment we are engaged with emergency relief and then we will move on to recovery and getting these people back to their land and houses, children back to education and farmers back working in fields and that's many months ahead."

For more details or to donate to Mercy Corps visit www.mercycorps.org.uk