After nearly a month of heavy flooding in Pakistan, international pledges and deliveries of assistance to the millions of displaced people were nearing $1 billion by the final week of August. The USA headed the list of governments with a doubling of its initial commitment to $150 million, followed by Saudi Arabia, which pledged $105 million, and the UK, with a commitment of $65 million. Substantial amounts were promised by the European Commission, Australia, Japan, China and India. Private contributions also began to surge following the increasingly detailed news coverage of the unfolding disaster.
The British public had raised around $47 million by 28 August, thanks in part to the efforts of the Pakistani community in the UK, while the Saudi public had raised nearly $20 million. Within Pakistan, cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan launched a challenge to the government by starting his own flood appeal, saying that the public did not trust giving money to the state.
He said he would lead a convoy of 300 trucks taking relief materials from Islamabad to Peshawar, Malakand, Mardan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The floods were the worst natural disaster in Pakistan’s history – and were bigger than the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2004 Asian tsunami combined. On 15 August, UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon said: “I have visited the scenes of many natural disasters around the world, but nothing like this. The scale of this disaster is so large – so many people, in so many places, in so much need.”
More than 17 million people are thought to have been affected by the floods. Around 1.2 million homes have been destroyed and some 1.7 million hectares of agricultural land have been damaged.
