Reflect on these facts from our friends at wikipedia:
The 2010 Pakistan floods began in July 2010 after heavy monsoon rains, largely affecting the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At least 2,000 people have been killed and more than 722,000 homes have been badly damaged or totally destroyed. The United Nations estimates over 20 million people are suffering with over 160,000 square kilometers (one-fifth of Pakistan) affected as a result of the flooding, exceeding the combined total of the affectees of 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Around a fifth of Pakistan’s total land area was impacted by the flooding. UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon said that it was the worst disaster he had ever seen, and asked for an initial $460 million for emergency relief, 20% of which had been received as of August 15, 2010. Extensive damage to infrastructure and crops significantly harmed the struggling Pakistani economy.
This year it seems our planet Earth has been tumbling around the roulette wheel, too frequently landing on the letter “C” — for cataclysm.
This makes five so far for 2010: the earthquake in Haiti, the Icelandic volcano, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the heat wave and massive fires in Russia, and now the floods in Pakistan.
In the US, a comparable disaster this magnitude would drown all coastal states. California, Oregon, Washington would be gone. The east coast from New York to Florida, and the Gulf states would all be under water. Yet, as 20 million Pakistanis struggle to survive the aftermath of these terrible floods, aid is still just trickling in. So far, the aid they have received falls too far below the requested UN aid, which addresses the country’s immediate needs as the monsoon rains abate and waters recede so that rescue and recovery can commence.
But its the longer term costs of returning 20 million people to a new “normal” life that should concern us. The recovery of this fragile state happens under a web of immense political tension: Pakistan borders India, our economic partner, and Afghanistan, where we are waging a ten-year war. The weak government in Pakistan, a nation with nuclear weapons, is focusing all its efforts on disaster relief while the Taliban, like a spider, lies in wait for opportunity.