MEDIA RELEASE
For immediate release: 2nd August 2010
Caritas network delivering urgent assistance to Pakistan’s floods victims.
Caritas
is delivering
urgent humanitarian assistance in Pakistan’s north-west, as the region’s
worst floods in over eighty years
claimed
more than 1000 lives and have left at least 400,000
stranded over the past 48 hours.
Following
a week
of monsoonal
rains
across the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Punjab and
Balochistan regions, flash flooding has knocked out communication infrastructure, disrupted
social service delivery, washed away homes and livestock,
and exposed the
most vulnerable
communities to the risk of electrocution and disease.
Jack de Groot, CEO of Caritas Australia, said: “our international partners are closely monitoring
the growing humanitarian crisis, identifying food, water, sanitation, medical assistance and
shelter as the most pressing needs in the affected communities.
“Already the Caritas network is providing water purification tablets, jerry cans, cookware and
soap to the flood victims. Initially Caritas will distribute emergency relief and shelter packs to
1300 families in southern Punjab and provide urgent medical treatment and vaccinations to
3000 people.”
In the coming 24 hours Caritas Australia’s partners in-country will further assess the multiplicity
of needs, recognising that the poorest and most remote communities will be hit hardest by this
devastation.
“As the floods contaminate local water supplies, decimate crops and food sources, damage
houses, and cut people off from essential health and social services, it will be those vulnerable
communities with least capacity to respond - particularly children, the elderly and the disabled -
who will command our attention.”
As a member of Caritas Internationalis, one of world’s largest disaster response and development
networks, Caritas Australia delivers rapid assistance to the marginal communities who shoulder the
burden of natural disasters, and enacts ongoing support to build local capacity in vulnerable regions.
In 2005 Caritas Australia worked with our international partners
responding to the massive
earthquake in Pakistan.
The Caritas network collaborated closely with both government and
international
aid organisations
to provide immediate relief and ongoing support in the years
following.
Media contact Erin Jardine 0408 869 833
The Catholic Agency for International Aid and Development
24-32 O’Riordan St, Alexandria, NSW, Australia, 2015 Toll Free 1800 024 413 Facsimile 1800 887 895
NEWS 
