Dr Abdul Wahid Soomro (MNA Pakistan Peoples Party)

Thousands of people streamed back to this historic southern city where new levees hastily built from clay and stone held back floodwaters that have inundated much of Pakistan.
But thousands who fled the waters that inundated neighboring towns complained Monday about the shortage of food and water as they camped in a vast Muslim graveyard on a hill near Thatta city.
Hordes of people ran after vehicles distributing food and water near the graveyard, a chaotic effort that left many flood survivors — especially the old and infirm — with nothing. Some drank rainwater pooled on the ground.
“I cannot run after food and survive the maddening rush at this age of mine,” said 75-year-old Nasima Mai, who fled with her extended family, mostly women and children.
“They throw food from the truck like animals are given food,” she said.

Village Tando Hafiz Shah is submerged after increase of super flood down stream Kotri.
The population of the village was about 5000. Majority of people were evacuated out of Katcha area and shifted to safer places and in relief camps.
Flood water has started gushing toward another Katcha village Rajoo Nizamani near Jhirik.
Meanwhile entire Katcha area has been submerged and water has started hitting the embankments.
There are 26 vulnerable points on both sides of river embankments in this district.
The most vulnerable points include Soorjani, Monarki, Sonda-hilaya bund and MS bund.
The flood water breached the embankment of RBOD canal, over-topped KB feeder bind and started entering in it on Sunday. DCO Manzoor Shaikh, MNA Dr. Abdul Wahid Soomro, irrigation engineer Iqbal Palijo reached the site to control the water flow.
Original Post @http://www.aaj.tv

FLOODS ravaged the southern city of Thatta in Pakistan leaving the town wrecked and virtually empty. More than 175,000 have vacated the town giving it an eerie look. The floodwaters broke through the third protective barrier made around the city on Saturday. People sought refuge in the higher reaches of the town that also included an ancient graveyard.

As chaos prevailed in Thatta today, main roads from both sides remained clogged with people who managed to make it to safer areas from nearby villages. With no basic amenities, people had to spend their night outside their homes.

Hadi Baksh Kalhoro, a disaster management official in Thatta, gave an estimated figure of 175,000 people fleeing from the city, only a few of them have been left behind. He further added that many of them were heading for nearby towns and cities.

KARACHI – Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis were fleeing the Thatta district August 27 after the bloated Indus River crushed a levee and flooded new areas, officials said.

The UN said as many as 1m people have been displaced in the south since midweek.

More than 8m survivors need emergency assistance across the country.

About 1m residents have been displaced in Thatta and Qambar-Shahdadkot since August 25, UN spokesman Maurizio Giuliano said.

A 200-foot-wide breach that developed in the Surjani dike on the Indus River near Kot Alam marooned three towns in Thatta district – Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Darro – having a population of 400,000, Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo said.

The flood could inundate Thatta city if it overcomes the nearby Bijora dike, he said.

“The political parties should rise above petty differences and stand together in reaching out to the flood-affected, and to rebuild a stronger Pakistan,” he said.

All images of flood victims are heartbreaking. But it is the faces of the mothers that keep me awake at night. I see the women of my mother country and I instinctively think of my own mom.
My mother is every bit a Pakistani woman. Her stern demeanor tries to hush up her inner tenderness. My siblings and I were raised on a rigid routine, almost army-like, but what I remember most about my childhood are my mom’s smiles when I made her happy. I like to think I’ve inherited her smile, something she hides at first but can’t suppress, until it lights up her entire face and the whole family. I have seen her face when she is hurt and upset, and it pierces my heart. As Pakistanis, we love our mothers fiercely. It is them who we think of in pain, and it is them we credit for our accomplishments. A favorite saying, “no success exists without a mother’s blessing” rings true.

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani said on Wednesday that flood relief cooperation could be a turning point in the relations between Pakistan and the United States and hoped it would help faster a much greater mutual understanding at people-to-people level.Talking to a private TV channel, Ambassador said that it was due to the government’s efforts that the international community has acknowledged the massive destruction of infrastructure in the recent floods. He said that United Nations called its session only on the request of the Pakistan government.It was wrong to say by some quarters that the government remained inactive in educating the international community about the intensity of the catastrophe, Haqqani said adding that he himself remained engaged in the US to attract attention of US authorities to the biggest tragedy in human history.
He said media could not notice the efforts of the government which it was making to attract attention of international community in this situation, he added.

No single date left such a lasting impression on the society and politics of Balochistan like August 26^th, 2006. It was, no doubt, “Balochistan’s 9/11”  when the province’s former governor and elected chief minister Nawab Mohammad Akbar Khan Bugti was brutally murdered by the democracy-blind military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf.
Balochistan marks today (August 26^th) the fourth death anniversary of the top Baloch leader who was killed by a military dictator incapable of resolving political disputes on the negotiation table.  Similar to the previous anniversaries, political parties across Balochistan are observing this as a “black day”. They have given the call for a complete shutter down strike and wheel jam to condemn the abominable assassination.
August 26^th is one such day on which all people of Balochistan, irrespective of their ethnic affiliations and conflicting political views, mourn collectively. Every citizen of the country’s poorest province recalls the arrogant assault on an old ailing man who fought for the democratic rights of the people of Balochistan.
Late Nawab Bugti was in fact a staunch democrat who did not shut his doors for all forms of negotiations. He was the last man Islamabad could negotiate with on the ever-worsening situation of Balochistan. By killing Bugti, Islamabad has not been able to find the right person in the last four years to talk to.
Bugti’s high-profile political assassination was condemned not only nationally but internationally. Everyone saw it as a smug offensive by a military dictator on someone who spoke for the just rights of his people. Throughout his political career, Bugti was never anti-Pakistan. He was, much to the disappointment of nationalists, a federalist who believed in coexistence with Pakistan. What he demanded was not independence for Balochistan. He stood for maximum provincial autonomy for Balochistan and other provinces of Pakistan. In Bugit’s interpretation, the federal government should solely deal with foreign affairs, defense and currency while rest of the other subjects should be devolved to the provinces.

The media of Pakistan, which until the bombardment of TV channels comprised mainly of newspapers, has a love-hate relationship with the Pakistan Peoples Party. When the party is not in power, it is hounded by the media yet agreeably termed as the largest political party of the country, having roots in all corners and a need for democracy. But when it comes into power, the daggers are out, all sorts of stories of ‘corruption’, ‘nepotism’ and bad governance make their rounds in the newspapers.  The targets are always the top leadership. Previously it was the late Benazir Bhutto and her spouse, Asif Zardari. He was portrayed as the bad man of Pakistan politics. MBB was portrayed as an abettor in the “crimes” of her spouse. Now it is only Asif Zardari who is the President of the country. The stories used to be well crafted with a view to capture the readers imagination and allow for further fodder to be added by the chattering classes. Some of these included the :

• Bukhari-Unnar case wherein some accomplices of Asif Zardari planted a bomb on a returning Pakistani, Mr. Bukhari to hold him for ransom and forcibly take money out of his bank account. The important and humanistic part was that Mr. Bukhari wanted to establish a hospital and school for needy in Pakistan. The story amongst many others were believed and Zardari was in prison between August 1990 and February 1993.
• The story of forcibly buying land in the outskirts of Islamabad where Asif Zardari, then a minister in 1995, went on a horse back and told the people living on those lands “yeh ab meri zameen hay”. The same story was recycled in 2009 by Ansar Abbasi.
• The PM House had stables and polo grounds where ponies and horses lived in air conditioned stables and ate “saib kay murabbay”. Sadly, no horses or ponies were ever discovered from the PM House for if they were, they would have been paraded publicly on Pakistan TV by Senator Saif
• Asif Zardari holding tons of gold and foreign currency when he was taken into custody on 5^th November 1996. Sadly, that gold and foreign currency was never displayed in public.
• Asif Zardari chose to become Minister for Environment as Islamabad has a goldmine in the form of “Bhang” plantation. Zardari will get them all uprooted illegally to use in distillery and brewery business.