Musharraf directs NDMA to ensure swift relief: new plan to fight Taliban readied

President General Pervez Musharraf has directed the National Disaster Management Authority to ensure swift relief, recovery and rehabilitation of the flood affected areas in Sindh and Balochistan.
Chairing a top-level meeting also attended by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz at Aiwan-e-Sadr here on Monday, President reviewed the ongoing relief operations and the strategy to reach out to the affected people with all necessary supplies.
The meeting also decided to immediately start rehabilitation of the damaged road networks in the affected areas of the two provinces on fast track basis to ensure speedy supply of relief goods. The President directed the NDMA to carry out overall damage assessment exercise and report in four weeks time so that the affected people are adequately compensated.
The meeting was informed that twenty one helicopters of Pakistan Army, Air force and Navy have been pressed into action, while more would be deployed keeping in view another weather system that is likely to hit these areas.
It was also agreed that in view of the severed sections of coastal highway the relief goods will be transported through sea and the first such relief ship is scheduled to arrive at Gwadar port shortly.
The meeting was also apprised about measures being adopted to prevent any epidemic in the affected areas after the floodwaters recede. Teams of doctors and paramedics with adequate medicines have already been dispatched to the flood ravaged areas.
QUETTA: Floods unleashed by a tropical cyclone and a week of torrential rain have killed 110 people and affected 1.5 million in Balochistan, officials said here on Monday. Giant swathes of the normally desert province of Balochistan remain under water following the impact of Cyclone Yemyin last Tuesday and heavy monsoon rains over the weekend.
Provincial relief commissioner, Khuda Bakhsh Baloch said flash floods at the weekend in Balochistan's Khuzdar area killed at least 35 people, while other bodies had been found, bringing the toll for the week to at least 110.
More than 200,000 are homeless and 1.5 million people in total are affected. "All these figures are likely to go up," Baloch said. "We don't know how many people have been swept away and how many villages are wiped out. We have still not reached some far-flung areas."
Police and senior relief officials said on Sunday that the death toll was 60.
Helicopters airlifted some 800 marooned people from different places and also supplied food to passengers stranded on roads and highways on Sunday, he added. Meanwhile two people made homeless by floods died of snake bites in the neighbouring province of Sindh, where several inland areas have been completely cut off by floods, officials said.
Thousands of villagers are marooned in parts of Larkhana, some 450 kilometres north of Karachi after a canal burst its banks, Sindh relief Commissioner, Anwar Haider said. "It's a bad situation. We have called the army for rescue operations but the water pressure coming from Balochistan continues to increase," he said.
BR correspondent adds: The relief and rescue operations by Pakistan armed forces have gained momentum in flood-hit areas of Balochistan and other parts of the country.
Sixteen Army Aviation helicopters are taking part in relief and rescue operations in Turbat, Sibbi and Jacobabad districts while in Turbat nine choppers are providing relief to the needy people. In last five days Army Aviation helicopters have flown 64 sorties in flood-hit areas of Balochistan and rescued thousands of people to safer places, sources in ISPR said.
They said that the relief goods sent from Chaklala Air Base and Karachi were being carried through these helicopters to affected areas which is being provided to villages which are most affected.
Two Sea King helicopters of Pakistan Navy have reached Gawadar to take part in the relief operations while PNS Tariq is again being sent along with necessary relief items to Pasni and Ormara.
They said that two MI-17 helicopters of Pakistan Air Force have reached Karachi for relief and rescue operations in Balochistan, while ten sorties of C-130 aircraft of the PAF with relief goods were sent on Sunday to Turbat, Gawadar, Jacobabad and Sibbi.
Since the start of relief and rescue operations 36 sorties of C-130 aircraft of PAF have shifted 400 tons of relief goods from PAF Base Chaklala and Karachi to Turbat, Gwadar, Pasni, Jacobabad and Sibbi for distribution among affected people of Balochistan.
The relief items include food packs, rice bags, tents, mattresses, mineral water, medicines, water tanks and other miscellaneous relief items. Pakistan Army Engineers and troops of Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) are busy round the clock in repairing and rehabilitating the communication infrastructure in flood-hit areas. Efforts are hand to re-establish link between Turbat-Hosab and Hosab-Panjgur.
As many as 400 men of the Frontier Works Organisation are busy in repairing Coastal Highway. The repair work is continuing from both directions ie Karachi to Pasni and Pasni to Karachi along the coastal highway. FWO troops have been able to link Pasni with coastal highway which was broken when 1.5 KM of road was washed away due to heavy floods. Repair of Phor and Shahdicor Nullah embankment is also continuing.
A medical team comprising six doctors and thirty paramedics has been formed into various mobile units to carryout relief operations. Doctors and paramedics of Frontier Corps along with their civil counterparts have established medical camps in far flung areas of Turbat for providing relief to the affected people.
Pakistan Air Force has established separate relief camps in Pasni which have provided relief to thousands of people who are affected due to floods. Meanwhile, a Frontier Works Organisation team reopened Shahrahe Kurakaram Khunjrab Pass.
NEW PLAN TO FIGHT TALIBAN READIED President Pervez Musharraf held a special meeting with top officials on Monday to discuss a new strategy to curb "Talibanisation" along the Afghan border, officials said.
The four-hour session came amid increasing concern that extremism is spreading not just in frontier regions but also to the cities, with a pro-Taliban mosque last week kidnapping several Chinese nationals.
Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led "war on terror", also faces international pressure to crack down on alleged insurgent enclaves being used to target Nato and US-led troops in Afghanistan. "The meeting was to review the security situation, especially in the border areas, and to prepare a recommendation for a new security initiative to curb extremism and terrorism," a senior government official told AFP. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, the governor of North West Frontier Province, the vice chief of army staff and some ministers were among those attending the meeting at the presidency in Islamabad, the official said. "President Musharraf presided over the meeting lasting four hours. He will give details of the plan when he addresses the nation later this week," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"The plan envisages reinforcement of security... and also establishment of peace committees in the region, that will entail involvement of local people," he added. "The aim is to isolate foreign elements and their local allies."