Flooding in Pakistan

Sightsavers is working with our partners to provide emergency eye care and relief for flood victims in Pakistan.

Heavy monsoon rains triggered the floods which have so far killed at least 1,600 people and displaced a further two million. Over a million houses are now reported to have been either damaged or destroyed. Similarly, 200 health facilities have been severely damaged, making it difficult to provide services to the affected communities.

Sightsavers in Pakistan

Our biggest corporate supporter Standard Chartered, the international bank, has recently responded with a donation of two million Pakistan rupees (PKRs) to fund eye camps in six of the flood affected districts. So far 16,000 people have been reached by the camps. They have committed a further seven million PKRs which will provide health and hygiene kits for 3,500 families, to reduce the spread of epidemics like conjunctivitis and trachoma. 

We have also received £28,560 in emergency funding from the Scottish Government to support our projects helping those affected by the floods. The funds will support the improvement of health and hygiene conditions within the relief camps and other localities of flood affected communities, with a special focus on people with disabilities. The project will focus on the provision of health hygiene kits to reduce the spread of water-borne diseases including eye infections, in the Nowshera and Charsadda Districts.

We have also facilitated a £5,000 grant from the RNIB that will be used by blind people’s organizations once their needs have been fully identified.

Sightsavers has remained in regular contact with all our partners, coordinating with different agencies to provide support wherever we can. We have initiated relief operations for people with disabilities in the badly affected Charsadda, Nowshera and Swat districts of Khyber Pakhtunkwa Province, and hope to reach a number of blind people and their families. (The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 10% of the displaced population are likely to have a disability, and therefore are considered more vulnerable.)

Our partner the Layton Rahamtulla Benevolent Trust (LRBT) is running relief camps in eight flood affected districts. The relief teams, each formed of a doctor, two paramedics, a driver and a cleaner, are treating a number of diseases, including cholera, diarrhoea and malaria, as well as supplying tablets to purify drinking water. So far they have seen over 16,000 patients, over a third of whom have eye problems. Anyone who requires eye surgery is referred to the nearest LRBT hospital.

Another partner, HRDS, has constructed pit latrines to prevent the spread of diseases at a camp for displaced people in Nowshera. They’ve also built clean drinking water points.

The College of Ophthalmology and Allied Vision Sciences (COAVS) is carrying out eye screening camps in the flood affected areas of Southern Punjab, and so far 8,000 patients have been provided with treatment. This was supported by Standard Chartered in Pakistan. The Pakistan Institute of Community Ophthalmology (PICO) Peshawar sent their team and some of their students into the field to provide eye care treatments in the medical camps.

As cases of conjunctivitis are rising, the Government of Sindh has asked the Civil Hospital in Karachi to send their team out to treat people.

In summary, we have reached about 25,000 people with medical treatments, 500 families now have clean water and about 100 people with disabilities are receiving support.

Niaz Ullah Khan, of Sightsavers' Pakistan office, said: “Sightsavers is not a relief organization but we can’t isolate ourselves from realities. Our partners have been supporting the relief and rescue operations, and Sightsavers has been helping mobilize resources from all possible means. We have stood steadfast alongside our partners in the belief that the true test of partnership is found in difficult and challenging times.”

The need for relief

The UN has suggested the flooding has now affected more people than the tsunami in 2004, the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005 and the earthquake in Haiti earlier this year combined.

Although the floodwaters have now, for the most part, receded, many of those displaced have no homes to return to. Problems such as eye and skin infections, diarrhoeal diseases and malnutrition, particularly among children, are on the increase and international aid is still desperately needed.

With the true extent of the damage only now becoming clear, a massive relief effort is under way. Entire villages, roads, bridges and railway tracks have been washed away or totally destroyed, leaving many communities completely cut-off without food or clean water. Many have been left further isolated by the devastating landslides that have occurred as a result of the floods, trapping thousands of people in submerged areas.

Sightsavers’ team in Pakistan took the incredible photos below, which go some way to illustrating the extent of the devastation that has affected over 15 million people.