Pakistan president visits flooded regions as official response criticised

 Guardian

Asif Ali Zardari makes trip to Sukkur as aid agencies ask why state of emergency has not been declared by government

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan today made his first visit to an area ravaged by the country's worst ever flood disaster amid mounting criticism of his lack of leadership in the two-week-old crisis.

Two days after returning home from a European tour, Zardari ventured to the city of Sukkur on the banks of the Indus river in the southern province of Sindh. Wearing a traditional white cap, Zardari travelled along the one-mile (2km) long Sukkur barrage, surveyed the churning Indus waters and met flood victims.

Television showed him comforting a sobbing elderly woman as children sat on the floor nearby. Villagers beseeched him for help.

As he witnessed the devastatation first hand, Zardari faced renewed attacks for not signalling clearly to the international community the enormity of the disaster. Aid agencies have expressed surprise at the government's failure to declare a national state of emergency, which might have galvanised the international community.

"It has been a confusing response," said an aid official on the ground. "A number of provinces have declared a state of emergency, the national government has appealed for international assistance but it has not declared a state of national emergency.

"It sends out mixed messages on the government's capacity to cope. Where you had a clear message such as in the Haiti earthquake or the Pakistan earthquake in 2005, there was a strong international response."

The military, which has ruled for more than half of Pakistan's 63-year history, has taken the lead in relief efforts, highlighting its relative efficiency in contrast to that of the civilian authorities.

UN aid agencies and their partners have requested almost $460m (£295m) to help Pakistan, but relief organisations have been perplexed by the sluggish international response. Total commitments plus pledges so far amount to $157.8m. "The scale of response is still not commensurate with the scale of the disaster," the UN said.

Based on the latest estimate of 14 million people affected, the UN said this meant $4.11 has been committed for each affected person, just over 10 days into the response. After the Kashmir earthquake in 2005, which left 2.8 million people needing shelter, $247m was committed in the first 10 days – $70 per person. Ten days after the Haiti earthquake, $495 had been committed for each person affected.

Aid officials have also noted the absence of substantial commitments from the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, which responded generously to past emergencies in Pakistan, most recently when millions fled their homes to escape a government offensive in the Swat valley last year. In the Kashmir earthquake, the Gulf states gave $200m in five to six days.

"A declaration of a national emergency would help," said Mohammed Quasilbash, country director of Save the Children, "and we're hoping that it will happen ... we are providing water purification tablets and jerry cans but we just don't have enough money to buy on the scale we need."

An Oxfam aid worker back from Swat in the hard-hit north-west said aid was beginning to get out, "but we need to do much more. It is a massive emergency and it needs a huge effort".

British donors have so far given £10.5m to help flood victims, according to the Disasters Emergency Committee, which said the money had helped provide more than 500,000 survivors with emergency care, clean water, food or shelter.

People have been jostling for food at distribution points throughout the disaster area, with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan adding to people's anxiety.

"The government ... should provide clean water and clean food," Mohammad Ali, a baker scrambling for supplies in the north-west, told Reuters. "Ramadan has arrived, but we see no sign of the government giving us any of these things."

Aid agencies are warning that 6 million children are at risk of malnutrition, diarrhoea and pneumonia as the polluted waters reach densely populated urban areas in the south, where poverty is worse than in the north.

"Outbreaks of cholera and malaria are a big concern," said Quasilbash. "In southern Punjab and Sindh, there are vast numbers of people living right along the water, some in makeshift houses with very poor hygiene and sanitation at the best of times.

"Children are drinking, washing in and going to the toilet in the same river water. If this sanitation crisis is not tackled now, in six months time, millions and millions of children will be suffering potentially deadly diarrhoea and other diseases."

The floods, triggered by torrential monsoon downpours, have killed more than 1,600 people, forcing 2 million from their homes and disrupting the lives of about 14 million people, or 8% of the population. Hundreds of roads and bridges have been destroyed from northern mountains to the plains of Sindh, where the waters have not yet peaked.

"Make no mistake, this is a major catastrophe," UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said when he launched the appeal. "We have a huge task in front of us. The death toll has so far been relatively low compared to other major natural disasters, but the numbers affected are extraordinarily high."