Mercy Corps Continues Flood Response

A Mercy Corps cash-for-work team works on restoring water to approximately 10,000 people. Photo: Mercy Corps Pakistan

Agency relief workers continue to reach stranded residents with humanitarian supplies and hire local residents to pump stagnant water from villages after a deluge that has affected 2.5 million Pakistanis since late June.

By the end of July, Mercy Corps had reached approximately 11,000 households with emergency kits - stocked with rice, oil, sugar, bottled water, soap and other basic supplies. Partial funding for the kits comes from a grant from USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.

The agency's cash-for-work program is now advancing the fledgling recovery, which has been hampered by remaining floodwaters. "Many parts of the emergency area are still flooded with stagnant water," says Dee Goluba, a member of the agency's Global Emergency Operations team who is coordinating the flood response. "We've had a lot of trucks delayed overnight, turned back, convoys stopped, turned around, etc., because of road conditions." Vast amounts of farmlands remain submerged, she adds.

In the village of Kot Phalyani, Mercy Corps is paying residents to "dewater" and repair roads breached by the flooding, and to lay new pipes to restore drinking water to 10,000 people. The agency has purchased or rented 14 water pumps in all. The cash-for-work program, primarily financed with part of a $500,000 Gates Foundation grant, gives local residents a way to earn an income by clearing debris, repairing bridges and other infrastructure.

Elsewhere, Mercy Corps teams have delivered 2,400 hygiene kits, and continue to truck 400,000 liters of water each day to ten distribution points. We've also constructed 175 latrines in roadside camps - higher-elevation spots above the flood line - and employed sanitation workers to clean latrines in two dozen large school camps.

Pakistan's deadly floods came as South Asia's monsoon season began - and on the heels of a June 24 cyclone that drenched Baluchistan, Pakistan's largest and poorest province, which is bordered by Iran, Afghanistan and the Arabian Sea. According to the latest estimates, the waters destroyed 55,000 homes and displaced 150,000 people in Baluchistan; more than 22,000 homes were washed-away and 217,000 made homeless in neighboring Sindh province.

At the height of the flood response, more than 50 agency workers were involved in efforts to reach thousands of displaced families, many who hadn't received any aid even three weeks after being forced from their homes. In one notable 36-hour spurt, aid workers distributed roughly 3,000 kits to families in Shadad Kot in Sindh Province. People there were living along 15 kilometers of the main road, sleeping in makeshift shelters and braving daytime temperatures as high as 118 degrees Fahrenheit.

The agency also opened three health camps co-located at small rural health facilities in the worst-hit areas. These camps were designed to treat outpatients - many of whom complain of skin irritations, eye infections and dehydration - and make referrals to district hospitals. (Read more about the camps.)

Mercy Corps has worked in Pakistan since the mid-1980s, and currently operates development programs — aiding Afghan refugees, reducing the incidence of tuberculosis and improving maternal and child health — in five of the eight districts hit worst by the floods.

Response teams in Pakistan mobilized quickly: one day after the cyclone struck Baluchistan. In every emergency, individual donations speed our response. Help us prepare for future crises with a gift to our Emergency Response fund.