Without increased support for the flood-affected communities across South Asia, the post-flood situation could turn into an even greater humanitarian emergency, according to one of the world’s largest international relief and humanitarian organisations.
CARE International further reported Tuesday that unless action is taken immediately against waterborne diseases, a new post-flood humanitarian crisis is likely.
“The immediate threat is from disease due to contaminated water,” the organisation reported Tuesday.
Nearly 60,000 people have suffered from acute diarrhoea and dysentery since the floods started, CARE noted in its latest report, and thousands of others are suffering from skin diseases and acute respiratory infections.
“As the weather turns colder, respiratory illness will become an increasing threat, especially to those children left without shelter because of the floods,” it added. In Pakistan, Nepal and India, the approaching winter months make shelter a more urgent priority before the winter snows arrive.
The ongoing flood crisis – considered the worst in recent memory in Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – have affected an estimated 48 million people across south Asia, and killed nearly 3,000 at the last count. While rains have stopped in some areas, in others they have continued, breaking riverbanks and triggering landslides and exhausting the coping mechanisms usually employed in this disaster-prone region
Members of the global alliance Action by Churches Together International have been bringing aid relief and assistance to vast regions of central and south Asia hit by severe flooding. They have made made the most vulnerable their aid priority, particularly those in out-of-the-way communities.
“When you lose everything it is very hard to recover,” said Sushant Agrawal, the director of Churches Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA). “People have lost their houses and belongings. The standing crops are gone. The flood has destroyed the total source of their livelihood.”
