The floods that ravaged Pakistan since July caused an estimated $9.7 billion in damage to infrastructure, farms, homes, as well as other direct and indirect losses, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB) have said.
"$9.7 billion is almost double the amount of damage caused by the 2005 Pakistan earthquake," said Rune Stroem, ADB Country Director for Pakistan, on Friday.
The two organisations made the estimate in their Damage and Needs Assessment (DNA), a survey conducted nationwide to assess the extent of the flood damage. The teams examined the extent of the damage in 15 key sectors across Pakistan. Included were the direct damage, indirect losses and reconstruction costs.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that areas of Sindh were still under water and many people continued to depend on life-saving assistance . In Sindh and Balochistan, more than one million flood-displaced people were living in camps.
The situation is still grim and relief efforts have been hit by lack of funds. According to OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS), the revised Floods Emergency Response Plan is only 33 percent funded. On the other hand, only 46 percent of the $661 million required under the Pakistan Humanitarian Response Plan 2010 has been received.
More than 1,700 people were killed and over 20 million – more than a tenth of the country’s population – in the recent floods. The United Nations estimates that 10 million people urgently need food and shelter. Many are living in wretched conditions beside roads, sleeping in the open with little food and clean water.
