Pakistan PM calls for global flood help

Pakistani families wade through a flooded area caused by heavy monsoon rainfall in Karachi, Pakistan on Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011. AP Photo/Fareed Khan

ISLAMABAD—Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has called for international help for up to five million people affected by recent monsoon rains.

Floods in Pakistan have killed 138 people in a month and affected up to five million more, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

Sindh, a flood-prone southern province, was the hardest-hit area with thousands of houses and large areas of crops destroyed.

“International organizations and the world community should focus their attention on the affected people,” Gilani said in an address to the nation late Saturday.

“We are sure that international organizations and the world community would sympathetically consider the appeal by the President of Pakistan and take immediate steps for the rehabilitation of flood-affected people,” Gilani said.

President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday asked the United Nations to issue an international appeal for humanitarian assistance.

Gilani said that recent rains in Sindh were almost two and a half times normal levels at 142 percent greater than average, and had inundated an area of 4.1 million acres, including 1.7 million acres of crops.

Some 700,000 houses were damaged across 21 districts, 150,000 people in relief camps needed immediate assistance, and 64,000 livestock had been lost, the prime minister said.

Last year, the worst floods in Pakistan’s history affected 21 million people and killed an estimated 1,750, with the south again taking the brunt of the devastation.