"Why is the world unmoved by the plight of Pakistan?" Photos/Dial-Up Warning

[sabrina 1]

The scope of this disaster is breath-taking! And heart-wrenching!

They have only 60,000 troops trying to handle this massive disaster which is now affecting 25% of the country's territory and millions and millions of people. Food, shelter, medical care, how are they going to cope?



Why is the world unmoved by the plight of Pakistan?

Angry flood survivors are turning to a banned Islamist charity, reports Andrew Buncombe from central Punjab

Surrounded by brown, fast-shifting water on all sides, the 40 or so families in the village-turned-island had received no food, no medicine and no news as to when they might be rescued.

"We're dying of hunger," shrieked the woman, Sughra Bibi, as volunteers on the boat handed over plastic bags of lentils and cartons of milk to the villagers who gathered around her. One of them shouted out: "We don't care if it's the chief minister or the prime minister, but no one is sending anything to us. We are only waiting for God's help."

Across a huge swathe of central Punjab, Pakistan's famously fertile agricultural belt, now besieged by unprecedented floods, such scenes are being played out a thousand times or more.

1) Villagers wade through flood waters with their livestock while looking for higher grounds in Sukkur, Pakistan on August 8, 2010. Pakistani navy boats sped across miles of flood waters on Sunday as the military took a lead role in rescuing survivors from a devastating disaster that has killed 1,600 people and left two million homeless. (REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro)


2) An aerial view, from a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter en route to delivering humanitarian assistance supplies, shows the flood-damaged countryside in Ghazi, Pakistan ON August 5, 2010. (REUTERS/Horace Murray/U.S. Army)


3) Pakistani flood survivors walk in the flooded area of Bssera village, 60 km south west of Multan, on August 10, 2010. (Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images)


4) Pakistani villagers chase after relief supplies dropped from an army helicopter in a heavy flood-hit area of Mithan Kot, in central Pakistan, Monday, Aug. 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer)


5) Pakistani villagers raise hands to get food dropped from an army helicopter at a flood-hit area of Kot Addu, in central Pakistan on Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010. (AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer


6) Pakistani villagers stand on the remains of a bridge washed away by heavy flooding in Bannu in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, Aug. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/Ijaz Mohammad


7) A Pakistani crosses a canal with the help of cable wire on a damaged bridge, which was washed away by heave flood in Ghazi Gat in central Pakistan on Monday, Aug. 9, 2010. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)



8) A boy waits for food handouts with other flood victims as they take refuge at a makeshift camp in Sukkur, in Pakistan's Sindh province August 8, 2010. (REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro)


9) Newborn twin boys lay covered up in a blanket on the floor of a Pakistani Army helicopter, as mother Zada Perveen (unseen) rests after being rescued by Pakistan Army soldiers during air rescue operations on August 9, 2010 over the village of Sanawan in the Muzaffargarh district of Pakistan. Of the twin boys, un-named at the time, the first was born 15 minutes before mid day and the other twin was born as the Army rescue helicopter was circling above to find a safe landing position on a road surrounded by flood waters. The mother was then carried on a makeshift bed through chest deep flood waters to the awaiting Pakistan Army helicopter. (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)


10) Pakistani flood victim Mohammed Nawaz hangs onto a moving raft as he is rescued by the Pakistan Navy August 10, 2010 in Sukkur, Pakistan. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

More pictures here If you click the link, you can use the 'J' key to move photos.

Reports say that the U.N. has issued an appeal for help and as a result more aid has been pledged today.

The U.S. has sent in 1,000 troops to help rescue flood victims and to deliver other aid. I can't help thinking of how it would be if the U.S. was not engaged in two wars and instead was free to send help to disasters like this. The different image it would portray around the world, and the difference it would make as far as our national security is concerned. That is how you win 'hearts and minds' ....

The reluctance to send help to Pakistan, according to the British Press was caused by the British PM referring to Pakistan as a terrorist state and the bad publicity given to Pakistan's president who was away from home for days after the floods began. Other reports say it is because the scope of the disaster was not fully comprehended at first.

Regardless, millions of innocent people need help and I hope they will receive it.