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| August 5, 2011 |
Pakistan: Devastating flood, one year later.
Devastating floods, driven by unprecedented monsoon rains, began late in July 2010, leaving one-fifth of Pakistan submerged. The rains in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan regions of Pakistan directly affected 20 million people mostly by destruction of property, livelihood and infrastructure. It left 2,000 people dead and 11 million homeless. In this post, we revisit some of those affected as the monsoon season approaches the region again. The last five images by Reuters photographer Adrees Latif (click on the image to fade the photograph) show us his subjects almost one year later, as he brought them back to the place where he photographed them during the 2010 flooding. -- Paula Nelson (34 photos total)
A female refugee passes a kettle of tea to her husband in preparation to break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan at a camp for flood victims in Nowshera, northwest Pakistan on Aug. 2. The couple were forced from their home by floods last year that killed about 2,000 people and left 11 million homeless. (Fayaz Aziz/Reuters)
Sameer, a 6-week-old infant, cries while lying on his father's legs after arriving to higher grounds in Sukkur, in Pakistan's Sindh province, on July 26. Sameer and his family took refuge along a highway after leaving their village near Dadu to escape this year's monsoon season. Pakistan remains woefully unprepared for floods this year, which a UN official said could affect up to 5 million people. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters) #
One-year-old Muskan sleeps in a hammock over cooking utensils inside her family's refugee tent set up along a roadside in Jamshoro, in Sindh province, on July 31. More than 800,000 families remain without permanent shelter a year after floods devastated Pakistan, according to the aid group Oxfam, and more than a million people need food assistance. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters) #
A man demolishes the remains of his home, which was destroyed during last year's floods, so that he can build a new house on the same foundation near the village of Baseera. Millions of Pakistanis lost their homes, farms, and livelihoods in the disaster, with hundreds of thousands of people remaining homeless today. (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images) #
A boy travels with his family's goat, dyed in henna, and belongings while seeking higher ground in Sukkur in Sindh province on July 27. Although this year's monsoon is not expected to approach last year's levels, large swaths of the nation remain particularly vulnerable because recovery has been so slow. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters) #
Zarina Iqbal, 20, with her 1-year-old daughter Akhsa, settles in for the evening at their half-built home. Floodwaters destroyed much of their village of Basti Jagwala Shoki, near Muzaffargarh, last summer. Most residents of Basti Jagwala Shoki must rebuild their homes from scratch, in stages. They use a combination of the debris left by the receding waters and new materials. The residents have not had any assistance and are having to use what meager savings they make on a monthly basis to build their homes. Many residents make an average of $3 a day. (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images) #
Zahida Parveen feeds her twin boys, Muhammad Usman and Muhammad Uman, as she takes refuge with her husband, Javed, and daughters Fiza, 7, Humera, 8, in the home of Javed's father in Kot Addu, Pakistan. The story of the boys' birth is one of great peril. Their mother took refuge in her father-in-law's home as she began going into labor. As floodwaters began swamping the land around that home, she began to experience problems giving birth. A Pakistani army helicopter was rushed to the scene and as it was circling to find a safe place to land, she gave birth to Uman. As it landed, Usman was born. Mrs. Parveen was carried on a charpai, or makeshift bed, through floodwaters to the helicopter, which rushed her to a military hospital. "The floods, were devastating, we lost an acre of cotton crops, and it destroyed our home, but the floods also bought happiness for me with the birth of my first twin boys,'' she said. (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images) #
Student Abdul Qadeer, 14, reads a newspaper in a tea shop in the village of Yousuf Naich. The village, in Sindh province, was devastated by the 2010 floods. The campaign poster in the background reads in Urdu "Salute to the martyr of democracy" with the images of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his daughter, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters) #
A father picks up his 3-month-old daughter at a refugee camp in Mor Jangi near Taunsa Sharif, in central Pakistan. Residents of this Pakistani village whose lives were washed away by last year's floods complain they have been largely forgotten. Some are still living in tents and others have had to sell their cattle and take on significant debt to rebuild their homes. (Anjum Naveed/Associated Press) #
A girl displaced with her family by last's year flooding, uses leftover pieces of okra to decorate her face outside her tent in Charsada, Pakistan. Residents of this Pakistani village complain they have been largely forgotten. Some are still living in tents and others have had to sell their cattle and take on significant debt to rebuild their homes. (B.K.Bangash/Associated Press) #
A Pakistani flood-affected family sit outside their tent at Nasata camp in the town of Charsadda in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, July 27, 2011. Pakistan has failed to invest in prevention measures since last year's floods. It is believed that they remain vulnerable to another disaster this monsoon season. (A. Majeed/AFP/Getty Images) #
A Pakistani flood survivor uses a brush to sweep a lane between homes in Madyan on July 20, 2011. A year after floods swept away homes and livelihoods, Pakistani survivors of a Taliban uprising are courting fresh disaster in the picturesque Swat valley by refusing to leave for higher ground. (A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images) #
Inamullah, 4, sitting on top of furniture and household items recovered in his family courtyard hours after they returned to their home, as floodwaters started receding, in Nowshera, northwest Pakistan, August 1, 2010, and (second) Inamullah, 5, posing for a portrait in the same courtyard almost a year after the Pakistan floods which ravaged one-fifth of the country, July 26, 2011. "I remember the water, it took my toys. I miss them the most," Inamullah said in Pashto. Ikramullah. His father said their 25-member family survived by taking refuge on a nearby hilltop from Thursday July 29, 2010 till Sunday August 1, 2010. "He's the most confident amongst his peers. But when it starts to rain, he cries in fear of another flood," his father said. (Adrees Latif/Reuters) [click image to see it fade] #
Residents returning to the town of Nowshera, northwest Pakistan, as flood waters started to recede, August 1, 2010; and (second) a man and boy as they ride a horse-led-cart past the same exact location almost a year after the floods ravaged one-fifth of the country, July 26, 2011. "Donations have not arrived to Nowshera due to corruption. Government officials and NGOs here are all corrupt. Pakistanis have lost love for each other because of money," Umar Durrani, a 24-year-old shopkeeper in the area said. (Adrees Latif/Reuters) [click image to see it fade] #
Kareen Bkhush stood by as his sons tried to salvage their wheat and food supplies from a flooded storage facility in Khan Ghar, located in southern Punjab's Muzaffargarh district August 13, 2010; and (second) Bkhush poses for a portrait in the same location one year later July 30, 2011. "I have not seen such flooding in my lifetime. The water came and it took everything," said Bkhush, a father of ten. "I had to sell my daughters' jewelry to survive," he said. Khalid, one of Bkhush's four sons said, "Our father fears another flood. He has become weak since." (Adrees Latif/Reuters) [click image to see it fade] #
Newborn twins lying between the hand of their grandmother Amir Mai (left) and mother Zahida Perveen in the cabin of a army helicopter, after they were evacuated from their flooded village of Mooza Dogar Klasra in Kot Adu, located in southern Punjab's Muzaffargarh district, August 7, 2010; and (second) the same twin boys, Mohammad Usman (left) and Muhammed Ruhman are photographed nearly one year later in the arms of their mother Parveen (center) and next to the hand of their grandmother Mai (left), who posed for this portrait in the courtyard of their home near Kot Adu July 29, 2011. "I was so happy, I was weeping when I saw they were boys," said Perveen, a then 25-year-old mother of three girls, as she lay in a military hospital on August 7, 2010. One year on, the twins' father Javed Iqbal said, "There has been less work after the floods and I have two more mouths to feed," speaking from their home on July 29, 2011. (Adrees Latif/Reuters) [click image to see it fade] #
Marooned flood victims in the village of Daya Chokha Gharbi reaching for food supplies thrown down from an Army helicopter near Kot Adu in southern Punjab's Muzaffargarh district on August 7, 2010; and (second) a posed portrait of residents from the same village raising their hands in the air and yelling the traditional Islamic cheer, "Allah u Akbar," or "God is Great," in the same location nearly one year later, July 29, 2011. "I never imagined such a flood. I was trapped in the cemetery for 48 hours before the Army helicopter arrived with food. There was chaos and the villagers were disorderly while vying for rations. Rice packets were falling to the ground and bursting. I stood there and watched in disbelief. I couldn't imagine something like this ever happening." said Nadir Khan, the 34-year-old farmer standing on the right in each image. Khan, seen in the image on the left with his hands on his head, said only one villager died. Last year's floods killed 2,000, left 11 million homeless and affected the lives of another 7 million. Pakistan is still struggling to recover from $10 billion in damages to infrastructure, irrigation systems, bridges, houses and roads. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)
[click image to see it fade] #