After floods,rebuilding Pak will take years

Even as Pakistani and international relief officials scrambled to save people and property,they despaired that the nations worst natural calamity...

Even as Pakistani and international relief officials scrambled to save people and property,they despaired that the nations worst natural calamity,the floods, had ruined just about every physical strand that knit this country together.

The destruction could set Pakistan back many years,if not decades,further weaken its feeble civilian administration and add to the burdens on its military. It seems certain to distract from US requests for Pakistan to battle Taliban insurgents.

The flooding,which began last month,has affected about one-fifth of the country nearly 62,000 square miles. At the worst points,the inundation extends for scores of miles beyond the banks of the overflowing Indus River and its tributaries,said Cmdr Iqbal Zahid,a Navy battalion commander in charge of rescue operations in Sindh.

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You have to highlight that the infrastructure all the way from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to Sindh is ruined, Zahid said. It will take years to rebuild.

Nearly 20 million people have been affected,about the population of New York State,the UN said. The number in urgent need is now about eight million and expected to rise. More than half of them are without shelter.

More than 5,000 miles of roads and railways have been washed away,along with 7,000 schools and more than 400 health centres. Just to build 500 miles of road in Afghanistan,the US spent $500 million and several years,according to the website of the USAID. One estimate,in a study from Ball State University and the University of Tennessee,put the total cost of the flood damage at $7.1 billion.

The recovery cost will have to be met by a mixture of domestic money,international donations and loans,USAID chief Rajiv Shah said. US officials fear that money will end up being spent just to get Pakistan back to where it was before the super flood.