Thatta, Pakistan:
This town had already been evacuated because of the threat of flooding, but it filled up again on Saturday with tens of thousands of people fleeing floodwaters that had inundated surrounding districts and villages after the Indus River broke its embankments in several places.
Families camped in front of the courthouse, in a park, in an ancient cemetery, in schools, at intersections and on scrub land for miles on the edge of the town. There was no organization to it: people tied their cattle to bushes, rigged up awnings with colored cloth on sticks or tipped rope beds on their ends to create shade from the stifling heat of 104 degrees. Within hours thousands more people had swarmed into the town, many of them on foot.
"Our strategy is to establish camps as soon as possible away from here," said Sadiq Memon, a member of the provincial assembly. "We want to clear people from here, it is under threat."
As he spoke outside the main administration building in the town center, a crowd of women gathered around begging for tents. "It is chaotic," he conceded. "The population of the town has quadrupled overnight."
Once again the Pakistani government is scrambling to keep up with the advancing floodwaters a month after they were set off by torrential monsoon rains in the northern mountains. The Indus has spread wider than anyone can remember across the flood plains of southern Pakistan on its way to the Arabian Sea, and officials are watching to see where it will break out next.
The Pakistani Army has deployed units the length of the river in Sindh, the southernmost province, to strengthen the embankments on both sides and watch for breaches, said Lt. Col. Asad Jalali, who is in charge of a command center in Thatta. The military has managed to contain one breach that directly threatened Thatta but has been unable to stem a far greater one. Flooding in an area to the east now threatens the towns of Daro and Sujawal, said Maj. Alamgir, who goes by only one name and whose brigade is deployed in the area.
The army remains on full alert as the river is expected to remain at high flood stage for 8 to 10 days, Major Alamgir said.
Despite the preparations, when the banks broke and flooded the area around Sujawal, people had to flee, villagers said. "My home is inundated," said Muhammad Saleem Amaro, 30, a father of eight who lives with his extended family of about 50 in the village of Hajji Usman, a few miles from Sujawal.
"The family left at midnight, and 14 of us men stayed with the livestock," he said as he pushed his oxen away from fodder piled up on a cart. "By morning the water was coming inside the house."
The villagers complained there was no transport available and since they had already lost their crops, they could not afford to leave and lose the livestock, too. "We are all scared," Mr. Amaro said, "but we will stay here in this area, on foot."
Families camped in front of the courthouse, in a park, in an ancient cemetery, in schools, at intersections and on scrub land for miles on the edge of the town. There was no organization to it: people tied their cattle to bushes, rigged up awnings with colored cloth on sticks or tipped rope beds on their ends to create shade from the stifling heat of 104 degrees. Within hours thousands more people had swarmed into the town, many of them on foot.
"Our strategy is to establish camps as soon as possible away from here," said Sadiq Memon, a member of the provincial assembly. "We want to clear people from here, it is under threat."
As he spoke outside the main administration building in the town center, a crowd of women gathered around begging for tents. "It is chaotic," he conceded. "The population of the town has quadrupled overnight."
Once again the Pakistani government is scrambling to keep up with the advancing floodwaters a month after they were set off by torrential monsoon rains in the northern mountains. The Indus has spread wider than anyone can remember across the flood plains of southern Pakistan on its way to the Arabian Sea, and officials are watching to see where it will break out next.
The Pakistani Army has deployed units the length of the river in Sindh, the southernmost province, to strengthen the embankments on both sides and watch for breaches, said Lt. Col. Asad Jalali, who is in charge of a command center in Thatta. The military has managed to contain one breach that directly threatened Thatta but has been unable to stem a far greater one. Flooding in an area to the east now threatens the towns of Daro and Sujawal, said Maj. Alamgir, who goes by only one name and whose brigade is deployed in the area.
The army remains on full alert as the river is expected to remain at high flood stage for 8 to 10 days, Major Alamgir said.
Despite the preparations, when the banks broke and flooded the area around Sujawal, people had to flee, villagers said. "My home is inundated," said Muhammad Saleem Amaro, 30, a father of eight who lives with his extended family of about 50 in the village of Hajji Usman, a few miles from Sujawal.
"The family left at midnight, and 14 of us men stayed with the livestock," he said as he pushed his oxen away from fodder piled up on a cart. "By morning the water was coming inside the house."
The villagers complained there was no transport available and since they had already lost their crops, they could not afford to leave and lose the livestock, too. "We are all scared," Mr. Amaro said, "but we will stay here in this area, on foot."
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