Adil Najam

The death toll continues to mount. From 228 it leapt up to 417, and now the authorities in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province say that it is more than 800. Casualties are also mounting in Sindh Punjab and Baluchistan.

If the 800 number is correct then the national toll must be well above 1000. And all of this as the ‘super flood’ that is expected in Sindh and Punjab because of these rains has not even hit as yet!

But the number of the day today is neither 800 or 1000, it is 1,000,000: Over one million people, according to the United Nations, have now been affected by these rains in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa alone. That number is bound to be much larger if you count the entire country, and is bound to grow even larger.

Adil Najam

The waters continue to rise. And so does the death toll. The number for today is at least 417, and in all certainty more. That that is just for Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa. All provinces and all parts of Pakistan are hit.

ATP will be sending all of its revenue to relief agencies working with the poor hit by these flood. We urge our readers to do the same.

Adil Najam

(July 30 update: The number is now  over 417.)

The number of the day for yesterday was clearly 152. The number of people who died aboard AirBlue flight ABQ-202 as it tragically crashed into Islamabad’s Margalla Hills. Today it is the (at least) 228 people who have died in the province of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa alone in the recent floods and torrential rains that have lashed at Pakistan. Not even nature seems to give a break to Pakistan these days!

We had, in fact, written a pictorial post about the devastation brought by these rains all over Pakistan only yesterday in a post that was overshadowed by the AirBlue plane crash later. But nowhere has the devastation been as great as in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, and I must confess that I too have been taken by the intensity of the loss of life that is being reported on now. The numbers being quoted vary in different news sources, but it seems mostly depending on when they are quoted. But no matter what the number, it is way too high for what any rain event anywhere should lead to.