Food shortages may be next for Pakistan

The World Food Programme says that the flooding survivors in Pakistan will face a severe food shortage. During the worst flooding in over 80 years, many fields of grain were drowned and may not recover. In addition, many stores of grain were washed away by the waves of water. The Pakistan flooding has killed over 1,400 people.

From this Reuters story that we found at the Edmonton Sun, we recieve the latest update from Pakistan.

World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Amjad Jamal said the organisations' workers were urgently trying to reach flood areas in the northwest cut off from food supplies, which a U.N. aid agency said devastated the lives of over 3 million people.

Before the floods hit, a million people were already forced from their homes in the Pakistani northwest because of fighting between the army and Taliban militants.

If the floods deepen the problem, it could set back government efforts to get the people back home in a bid to help stabilise nuclear-armed U.S. ally Pakistan.

"We have sent a request to the government and we are getting six helicopters from them and we will be doing air drops to the areas which are cut off," Jamal told Reuters in a telephone interview.

WFP teams in the field since Tuesday may not be able to report their findings until Wednesday night, he said.

"You can imagine for five or six days floods have caused havoc in these areas. People have lost their food stocks. The markets are not up and running. Shops have collapsed. People are definitely in the greatest need of food," he said.

"That's what we fear. The need to rush to those areas which have been cut off for the past week to provide them with life-saving food."