Dehydration kills 80 people

Eighty people have died in the first five months of this year in central and northwestern Pakistan as a result of dehydration due to the ongoing drought and a severe heatwave. Temperatures in May reached 50 degrees Celsius in the worst-affected area of the central Sindh Province, according to a drought report released on Tuesday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Livestock worth US $247 million has been lost, and acres of crops wiped out, destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers. Similar conditions between November 1999 and July 2000 claimed 143 lives, and 2.48 million livestock died, the report said. The drought report highlighted heat-related deaths at the Jalozai refugee camp in northwestern Pakistan, where 70,000 people live in ramshackle shelters, exposed to soaring temperatures and poor sanitation. A total of 33 deaths were recorded in 2001 at the makeshift site, where the UN was now providing temporary emergency assistance, including increased water supplies and rehydration salts. Pakistani officials have said the country could be facing “one of the worst droughts in recent history”. The main source of water, the River Indus, virtually dried up in Sindh Province, because there had been no significant rain for nearly a year. A UNDP spokesman in Islamabad told IRIN on Wednesday that a UN fact-finding mission was in Sindh assessing the drought situation, and would report its findings in July, after which emergency assistance may be provided, pending a request by the provincial government. Meanwhile, the report said there were few signs of any drastic change in the weather, but dust storms and light rains in some parts of the country over recent weeks had lowered temperatures slightly. Pakistan’s efforts to alleviate suffering have included diverting resources to water development and supporting the farming community. However, the extent of this assistance will only be visible after the country’s budget is read in June, the report said. The government has requested its own assessment of the drought to be carried out by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which will release its findings next month. [For full report see: http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/9ca65951ee22658ec125663300408599/fad2830aa7a9c1a3c1256a5b005c6e8a?OpenDocument]