If a child cries in the flood plains and nobody listens, does it make a sound?
The largest crisis in modern history continues unabated, and the world at large continues to yawn, shrug, and ignore it (at best), and cheer, at worst.
Heat over 104 degrees.
No shelter.
Scant food.
Water everywhere, but if you drink it, you will get sick and maybe die.
Relief continues to trickle in where needed, but with a mega-disaster like this, too little, too late means disease, hunger, and death will continue to spread.
Things continue to get worse every day, with no end in sight.
Help Pakistan is a group dedicated to getting needed humanitarian support to flood ravaged Pakistan, and disseminating information pertaining to the floods to the dailykos community at large. Our goal is getting donations to those people who need it most.
If you have a negative comment pertaining to Pakistan, its people, its culture, or its relationship with the United States, please refrain from making it here. If you would like to be a part of our group, please click the picture at the very bottom of this diary. We would love more volunteers to help us with the burden of getting a diary up every day.
The world has sent a message to the victims of the devastating floods:
What floods?
People who are paying attention are trying to find our the causes of the collective ignorance, intentional or otherwise, of this crisis that the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called "the worst disaster he had ever seen."
http://www.latimes.com/...
The U.S. government has committed $200 million for flood assistance, more than any international donor thus far, but private contributions have lagged behind those for other disasters, officials say. About $11 million has been raised by U.S. aid groups to date; in the first two weeks after the Haiti earthquake, such groups raised an estimated $560 million, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
(snip)
"When you look back to Kashmir, it wasn't just the Muslim communities responding. It was a much larger scale, and the whole world responded at a greater and faster rate," he said. "Even though it's the same country and the same population, the response is different."
Yeah, "the response is different", alright.
{LP gets out his calculator; beep beep beep}
That is 55 times more aid, in half the time.
The response is "different".
It would be just like having the doctor whack your knee to test your reflexes.
The 1st time: Your leg kicks up a bit.
The 2nd time: You slip into a coma for a few weeks.
The response euphemism is different.
Here is an example of just how far off the radar this calamity has fallen in just one month.
Today, the one month "anniversary" of the flooding, what do we see?
On the NYTimes' (global edition) front page:
Cricket Betting Scandal Rocks Pakistan
See; we're not ignoring Pakistan!
It's right there on the front page!
(Just like last Tuesday when the Wall Street Journal buried its only mention of the flood in a piece about a suicide bomber.)
OK...I'll go to the world section.
{crickets}
Uh...hello?
How about "Asia Pacific"?
Oh, joy.
We have an item about the floods.
Did you miss it?
Look closer.
And further down....
Waaaaaaaaaaaay down at the bottom under
"More News"
So they got it covered.
All the news that's fit to print, baby!
It's there, so we're good!
Photograph: Pedro Ugarte |
It's a good thing the foreign press deems this story worthy of their time.
People ran after vehicles distributing food and water near the graveyard – a chaotic distribution system that left many flood survivors, especially the old and infirm, with nothing. Some were forced to drink rainwater from the ground.
Boys suffering from diarrhoea receive treatment at a hospital in Sukkur
Photograph: Kevin Frayer/AP |
Pakistan floods: people return home to find nothing left, nothing at all
The monsoon deluge turned mud houses in north-west Pakistan into a sodden mess
Sirajuddin stares at the shallow muddy pool of water. He had come to salvage whatever he could from his home. There is nothing, nothing at all.
"This was our house," said 30-year-old Sirajuddin, pointing to the pool.
Before the great flood came at the end of July there were some 120 homes in the village of Drab Korona, in Charsadda district in north-west Pakistan. Today, only a mosque, two schools and the odd brick wall of other buildings have survived. The rest of the buildings were made mostly of mud. A torrent of freezing cold water, which eventually went roof-high, had come in the dead of night and by the next afternoon, almost everything was washed away.
A survivor begins rebuilding his mud house in Nowshera, Pakistan.
Photograph: Mohammad Sajjad/AP |
This ain't over; far from it.
Help Pakistan
It is up to us.
The American Taliban will not rush to help. (See: "Islamofascist" graffiti above)
Those who have hearts, and realize the extent of the need, will find a way to do something to help the suffering millions of innocent people.
They have been in need for over one month.
They need our help now more than ever.
• • • • • •
Greg (Three Cups of Tea, Stones Into Schools) Mortenson's non-profit (CAI) recommends supporting a local (Pakistani) group to which donations will likely have a large, immediate, and lasting impact-
Human Development Foundation
http://www.hdf.com
(800) 705 1310
DONATE
• • • • • •
Other groups that deserve support as well.
Doctors without Borders (MSF):
DONATE
The Red Cross:
DONATE
OXFAM:
DONATE
UNICEF:
DONATE
Toll free: 1-800-FOR-KIDS (1-800-367-5437)
Text: "Text FLOODS to 864233 (UNICEF) to donate $10"
Shelterbox:
DONATE
ShelterBox tents in Shishkat upper Hunza, Pakistan
• • • • • •
From the US State dept.
How You Can Help:
Text "FLOOD" to 27722. Your $10 will go to the State Department Fund for Pakistan Relief that Secretary Clinton announced August 19, and is part of a new effort to bring attention to the need for aid.
Text "SWAT" to 50555 ; $10 goes to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees fund for flood victims
We are looking at what may be the worst humanitarian crisis the world has seen in a century.
Some of us at Daily Kos use a Google group to help organize for the crisis in Pakistan. Anyone who would like to get involved or get alerts when a new HELP PAKISTAN diary is posted, please join.
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