Pakistan braces for more storms

PAKISTAN: Pakistan holds crisis talks Wednesday as the country braces for more storms that threaten to deepen a humanitarian disaster after the worst floods in living memory.

With over three million people hit by the flooding, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is to chair an emergency cabinet meeting to speed up the relief work and estimate the damage — expected to run into millions of dollars.

Record rains last week triggered floods and landslides that washed away entire villages and ruined farmland in one of the country’s most impoverished and volatile regions, already hard hit by Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked violence.

The international community has mobilized with offers of aid after the flooding that has claimed the lives of up to 1,500 people and affected 3.2 million, including 1.4 million children, according to UN and Pakistani figures.

“This is a serious humanitarian disaster,” the UN humanitarian coordinator for Pakistan, Martin Mogwanja, told AFP, saying that discussions were under way to determine whether the situation warranted a fresh appeal for donor aid. PESHAWAR, Tuesday, AFP