Deadly Thai floods close factories, threaten Bangkok

Nearly 200 factories, including one run by Japanese car maker Honda Motor Co Ltd , closed in the central Thai province of Ayutthaya because of flooding, which could threaten Bangkok this week, officials said today.

About 261 people have died since late July in flood-related incidents, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said. Some 2.3 million people have been affected in the worst flooding to hit parts of Thailand in 50 years, mainly in the centre, north and northeast.

The Rojana estate in Ayutthaya province, run by Rojana Industrial Park Pcl , was flooded after a wall of sandbags failed to hold back water overnight.

Mexico No confirm Death yet in Giant Mudslide

Pounded by incessant rain, a hillside in the state of Oaxaca collapsed onto a village early Tuesday, burying houses in mud and stones and possibly trapping hundreds of people as they slept, state authorities said.

Scores of people killed after heavy rain triggers landslides across Central and South America

Eleven people are missing after a massive landslide buried 300 homes in a remote area of southwestern Mexico.

Rescuers initially feared that hundreds of people could have been buried alive as they slept in their beds in Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec.

But officials are speculating that four people may now have been killed, based on a calculation of how many houses were on the slope when the landslide occurred.
Governor Ulises Ruiz said: 'So far no one is confirmed dead, only 11 missing who we hope... will be found.'

Desperate search: Rescue workers dig through mounds of mud and rock in Santa Maria Tlauiltoltepec, Mexico, after a massive landslide buried hundreds of homes

Devastation: A swathe has been cut out of the hillside near the town after mud and rock gave way yesterday morning

Pakistani president thanks China for additional flood aid

ISLAMABAD, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari thanked Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the Chinese government and people for their generous assistance of additional 200 million U.S. dollars for the flood affectees, Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said Friday.

China pledged another 200 million dollars of aid to flood- stricken Pakistan at the United Nations summit in New York on Wednesday.

"The President while appreciating the gesture said that the additional assistance was yet another demonstration of the strong bonds between China and Pakistan and how the Chinese leaders and people cared for the people of Pakistan," the Presidential spokesman said in a statement.




Doctor Zhao Jie of China's Armed Police General Hospital treats a patient at a tent hospital in Makly town of flood-hit Thatta in southern Pakistan, Sept. 22, 2010, on the traditional Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.

Red Cross aid workers face anger in Pakistan

Red Cross aid workers have faced angry crowds in Pakistan when distributing food and other supplies to flood victims, a disturbing trend that could jeopardise operations, a senior official said on Thursday.

An ICRC relief convoy was forced to halt handouts of supplies and retreat hastily in Punjab province this week, according to Jacques de Maio, head of South Asia operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“We have had two instances where we had to stop distribution because of unrest. And we are worried because if this trend expands and propagates it would put under pressure our ability to help people,” de Maio told a news briefing in Geneva.

An earlier incident took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province several weeks ago, forcing the ICRC to interrupt distributions there temporarily.

Pakistan gets IMF relief, tightens security

The International Monetary Fund will give Pakistan US$450 million (RM1.4 billion) in emergency flood aid, providing some relief for a government overwhelmed by the disaster and facing renewed militant violence.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in Washington yesterday that the funds would be dispersed in “coming weeks.”

Strauss-Kahn said discussions with a delegation led by Pakistan’s Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on how to “reorganise” an US$11 billion IMF loan programme would continue.

He said Islamabad remained committed to terms including tax and energy sector reforms.

The floods struck just as the army said it had made progress in the war against the al Qaeda-linked Sunni Taliban.

Pakistan has only secured 63 per cent of the US$459 million in emergency funds it needs.

Pakistan’s flood victims frustrated with medical care

Victims of Pakistan’s floods queued to get medical treatment today as doctors complained of a shortage of medical supplies to treat a rising number of patients.

Monsoon floods have receded in some areas but aid agencies fear disease, food shortages and malnutrition may create new crises as people head back to their shattered towns and villages and try to rebuild their homes and lives.

“Whatever stock of medicines we have is about to finish and the number of patients will increase in the coming days,” said Ashiq Hussain Malik, medical superintendent of Muzaffargarh’s main district hospital in Punjab province.

A flood victim fills a traditional clay water container from a broken pipeline submerged in flood waters in Shikarpur, in Pakistan’s Sindh province, today, August 31, 2010.

Heartbreaking images as floodwaters swamp yet another Pakistan town

Floodwaters inundated a large town in southern Pakistan today, spreading further destruction in an area where hundreds of thousands of people who fled to higher ground are in dire need of food and water.

Almost all of Sujawal's 250,000 residents fled from the town before the water rushed in, but the damage to homes, clinics and schools added to the widespread devastation the floods have caused across Pakistan, said Hadi Baksh, a disaster management official in southern Sindh province.

Authorities in Sujawal were trying to limit the damage, but the water level has already risen to 5ft (1.5m) in the centre of town and up to 10ft (3m) in the surrounding villages, said Anwarul Haq, the top official in Sujawal.


Carrying bundles of food and clothes on their heads Pakistani families wade across flooded terrain in the south of the country

UN fears for children as Pakistan floods threaten towns

A flood victim stands in queue with others to get food handouts while taking refuge with her family in a relief camp for flood victims in Sukkur, in Pakistan's Sindh province.

Flood waters threatened to engulf two towns in southern Pakistan today, a month after the disaster began, as the United Nations warned that tens of thousands of children risked death from malnutrition.

The floods are Pakistan’s worst-ever natural disaster in terms of the amount of damage and the number of people affected, with more than six million people forced from their homes, about a million of them in the last few days as the water flows south.

The disaster has killed about 1,600 people, inflicted billions of dollars of damage to homes, infrastructure and the vital agriculture sector and stirred anger against the US-backed government which has struggled to cope.

Pakistan floodwaters ebb, hunger and disease remain

A two-year-old girl is covered with flies in a village in Rajanpur district of Pakistan's Punjab province on August 28, 2010

A month after torrential monsoon rains triggered Pakistan’s worst natural disaster on record, flood waters are starting to recede — but leaving countless survivors at risk of death from hunger and disease.

The disaster has killed at least 1,643 people, forced more than six million from their homes, inflicted billions of dollars of damage to infrastructure and the vital agriculture sector and stirred anger against the US-backed government which has struggled to cope.

Despite generally lower water levels, officials said they were still battling to save the delta town of Thatta, 70km east of Karachi, in the southern province of Sindh.

Water has broken the banks of the Indus near Thatta and also topped a feeder canal running off the river.

Pakistan orders evacuation of town as flood spreads

Pakistan has ordered the evacuation of a southern town after the swollen Indus river broke its banks, nearly a month after devastating floods first struck, an official said on Friday.

Floodwaters are beginning to recede across most of the country as the water flows down the Indus, but because of high tides in the Arabian Sea, they still pose a threat to towns such as Thatta, 70 km (45 miles) east of Karachi, in the river delta.

Pakistan starts IMF talks, seeks help from floods

Pakistan braced for more flooding in the south as officials began talks in Washington yesterday with the International Monetary Fund on how to shore up the battered economy to maintain stability.

The IMF said it would review Pakistan’s budget and economic prospects due to the magnitude of a disaster that has ravaged crops and infrastructure, left more than 4 million homeless and raised concerns that Islamist militants may exploit the chaos.

Estimates for economic growth this year range from zero to 3 per cent — below the official target of 4.5 per cent — with the United States worried a weak economy could destabilise a key ally in the war against militancy.

Niaz Mohammad carries his sandals and a sack of supplies as he wades through waters while fleeing the flooded village of Sultan Kot, 51km from Sukkur, yesterday, August 23, 2010

Over 50,000 evacuated as floods hit northeast China

More than 50,000 people have so far been evacuated from a city in northeastern China after flooding from a rain-swollen river that also borders North Korea, the official Xinhua News Agency said today.

Homes and roads in Dandong city have been submerged under the water after the Yalu River, which runs between China and North Korea, broke its banks, Xinhua reported.

Heavy rain began pounding the area from early yesterday cutting off some power and communication lines.

Pakistanis brace for more destructive flooding

Residents of a southern Pakistani town fled rising flood waters today in a new frontline of a disaster that has raised questions about the stability of the US-backed government.

Authorities struggled to shore up an embankment holding back a growing tide on the edge of Shahdadkot, in Sindh province, which aid groups say is still highly vulnerable to floods that have raged through Pakistan for three weeks.

A heavy stream of trucks, tractors and donkey carts transported people away, repeating scenes played out throughout the catastrophe that has made more than four million homeless.

“People are saying it’s dangerous to stay,” said Riaz Hussain, as he finished packing his family and possession, including two water buffalo, onto a trailer behind a tractor.

“I’ll find some corner to live with my family.”

The flood is spreading through the rice-growing belt in the north of Sindh district by district, breaking through or flowing over embankments. People have also cut through dikes and roads hoping to divert the water away from their homes.

Flood victims cross a flooded road at Karamdad Qureshi village in Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab province today, August 21, 2010.

China rescuers seek 90 missing after landslide

Chinese rescuers scoured a remote valley in the nation’s southwest for survivors today, after a landslide decimated a village, killing at least one person and leaving 90 missing.

The landslide in Puladi, a settlement in Yunnan province, was the latest of a succession of such disasters to have battered China this summer, when torrential downpours have unleashed floods and dislodged hillsides on to towns and villages.

In the worst landslide, at least 1,287 people died in Zhouqu in northwest province of Gansu after rains. More than 450 residents remain missing, probably dead. Storms in neighboring Longnan and in Sichuan province to the south killed dozens more.

Pictures from Puladi showed a swathe of the green valley covered in mud, with rescuers laying down planks across the destruction to reach a stricken village with about 100 residents, some of them workers at a small iron ore mine.

“We heard a massive noise and knew it was a mudslide,” one villager, Yu Lichun, told the China News Service. “We ran and there wasn’t even time to get dressed, and we ran shouting and screaming.”

Workers disinfect the disaster site of the mudslide-hit Puladi township August 19, 2010

Pakistan flood homeless toll put at over 4m

More than four million Pakistanis have been made homeless by nearly three weeks of floods, the United Nations said today, making the critical task of securing greater amounts of aid more urgent.

The UN had earlier said that two million people had lost their homes in the worst floods in Pakistan’s history.

Aid agencies have been pushing for more funding as they try to tackle major problems such as food supplies, lack of clean water and shelter and outbreaks of disease.

The economic costs of the floods are expected to run into the billions of dollars, stepping up pressure on Pakistan’s government just after it had made progress in stabilising the country through security offensives against Taliban insurgents.

People fleeing floodwaters hold out pans as they ask for food handouts at a makeshift relief camp in Sukkur, August 18, 2010

Disease hovers over Pakistan’s flood-stricken children

As Pakistan’s floodwaters rushed into Bakhmina Said’s mud-brick home, she grabbed medical records of her daughter’s heart condition, put them in a metal trunk and headed to high ground.

Eighteen days later, one-year-old Naeema sleeps on a mat in sweltering heat at a fly-infested camp, with no fan, no chance of seeing a cardiologist anytime soon and at risk of catching other potentially fatal diseases in cramped, un-hygienic conditions.

“Who will treat her? The doctors said she has a hole in the wall of her heart,” said Said, also worried because one of her six other children has fallen ill after the floods.

Flood victims receive food handouts from the army in Jafarabad district in Pakistan's Baluchistan province August 17, 2010

The terrifying moment a television reporter is swept away by China landslide

Swept along by a ferocious mudslide, a television reporter struggles helplessly as rescue workers make desperate attempts to save her.

Flinging themselves into the swirling mass, two men eventually manage to stop the journalist from being carried away.

The astonishing rescue came after fresh landslides today rocked south-west China following days of heavy rains, leaving at least 67 people missing and cutting off access to the area.


Help at hand: A man dives to grab the journalist before she is lost for good

Caught: The man is joined by a rescue worker; both men cling on to the journalist

UN says no aid yet for 6 million flood victims in Pakistan

A man rides his donkey cart while fleeing from flooded village of Karampur, about 70km from Sukkur in Pakistan’s Sindh province August 14, 2010
United Nations aid agencies have provided assistance to hundreds of thousands of victims of Pakistan’s worst floods in decades but relief operations have yet to reach an estimated six million people.

The lives of 20 million people — nearly 12 per cent of the population — have been disrupted by one of the worst catastrophes in Pakistan’s history. Six million still need food, shelter and water, the UN said in a statement.

Highlighting the scale of the disaster, Prime Minister Raza Yusuf Gilani said in an Independence Day speech the country faces challenges similar to those during the 1947 partition of the subcontinent.

Thousands of families were torn apart after the bloody partition into Hindu-dominated India and Muslim-majority Pakistan that led to the flight of at least 10 million refugees in the greatest migration in recorded human history.

Panis in Pakistan Mass flood-No aid arriving yet in Pakistan.