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Epic devastation in Pakistan


August 23, 2010
By Peter Biro

A refugee from Afghanistan sits amid the rubble that was formerly his home in the Azakhel camp near the city of Peshawar.

Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC

Pakistan flood crisis

  • At least 1,600 people have been killed and a staggering 20 million people have been affected by devastating monsoon rains in Pakistan. Villages, crops, roads and bridges have been washed away by the ongoing deluge. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • A refugee from Afghanistan sits amid the rubble that was formerly his home in the Azakhel camp near the city of Peshawar in Nowshera district, Khyber Pakthunkhwa province. The entire camp, which housed some 30,000 people, was crushed by the water masses when the nearby Kabul River burst its dams. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • <p>Almost all the mud houses at Azakhel camp have been turned into clay mounds and twisted debris.</p> Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • The Afghan refugees have lived at Azakhel for decades after fleeing Soviet occupation and civil war. Now they have once again been forced to flee. Most live nearby, in tents by the side of a busy highway. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • Allah Jan (right) from Azakhel has squatted under a tarpaulin for over two weeks. “The clothes I wear are all that I own,” she said. “The local people here help me with some food, but that is all.” Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • Zubadia Razia, 20, walks through the mud and rubble that was once her home in the devastated Charsadda district. She is looking for a suitcase she kept clothes in, but it is nowhere to be found. Large areas were damaged when three rivers in the district, the Jindi, Kabul and Swat, overflowed. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • In an empty school nearby, desperate villagers await an aid distribution by the International Rescue Committee. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • A displaced Pashtun boy whose house was destroyed in the floods has sought shelter at a public building together with his family. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • Morsalin and his grandson Muaz are among the hundreds who have found temporary shelter in a school building in Charsadda. “I'm very old and remember the floods in 1955,” 80-year-old Morsalin said. “But this is much, much worse.” Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • A boy and his young sister await the distribution of aid. The United Nations has warned that a shortage of aid money is threatening six million people, the majority of them children and infants, with potentially lethal diseases carried by contaminated water. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • Hygiene supplies are offloaded for distribution to hundreds of stranded people in Charsadda. As a first step to thwart the spread of disease, my IRC colleagues distribute water purification tablets. The next step will be to bring clean water via tanker trucks to the devastated communities. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • Flood victims line up to receive hygiene supplies. The lack of soap, chlorine tablets and disinfectants, coupled with contaminated water and the lack of latrines, poses a serious health risk. Diarrhea and skin disease have already started to spread with at least one confirmed case of cholera in northwestern Pakistan. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • A woman's identification is verified at a relief distribution site. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
  • Once this emergency phase is over, the more difficult task of rebuilding shattered communities starts. “The situation is desperate,” the IRC’s Pakistan director Tammy Hasselfeld says. “It will take a very long time and increased support from the outside world to help people recover from this catastrophe.” Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Launch Slideshow

The International Rescue Commitee is delivering aid to victims of the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history and working to thwart outbreaks of waterborne disease.  Photos by Peter Biro/The IRC.

All IRC Slideshows >
All Pakistan Slideshows >

I am traveling with a team of IRC colleagues delivering aid in Pakistan where a staggering 20 million people's lives have been disrupted by the country's worst flooding in living memory.

At least 1,600 people are known to have lost their lives and the devastation is epic. Entire villages, millions of hectares of crops, roads and bridges have been washed away by the ongoing deluge.

Here are some photos I took in some of the hardest-hit areas in the country's northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

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