Rain, Mud, Land Slides and Smashed Infrastructure Stop Relief but Big Cricket Grinds On

In Pakistan new flood warnings have been issued for a series of towns in the north-west of the country, as the Indus river carries days of heavy rain southwards.

Pakistan Floods

The BBC’s Jill McGivering in Islamabad reports that some river defences have already been breached and others are under threat, forcing tens of thousands of people in the region to flee their homes in search of higher ground.

More than 20 million people are already thought to have been affected by the floods, which are now covering an area the size of England. At least 1,600 people have been killed with health officials warning the toll could rise as water-borne diseases spread.

Aid agencies say six million people are in need of immediate assistance but that hundreds of thousands have received no aid at all.

Relief agencies say aid has yet to reach tens of thousands of the flood survivors

The distribution of supplies has been hampered by severe damage to the country’s infrastructure, with roads and bridges washed away or blocked by landslides.

Meanwhile at Cricinfo their correspondent reports that ‘England Aim to Close Out Series.’ (So what ?) The focus by the machine that exists off and around big cricket grinds on.

The reporter can puzzle that, “Pakistan continue to be a mind-boggling mixture of confused signals.”

Most of us would be wondering how anyone in the Pakistan camp can concentrate on cricket when over 10% of the population are homeless or threatened with homelessness, when the infrastructure of an area of their country the size of England has been smashed, when aid from the rest of the world is 50% down on that expected, when the aid that is being offered is not getting through because of the infrastructure difficulties and when the obscene shadow of cholera stalks across the lives of 20,000,000 of their fellow countrymen.

Surely, the only remaining justifiable function that this cricket series can have is that of fund and issue raising for the disaster.

Please consider joining this Cricket Action for Pakistan Flood Victims group on Facebook and sharing it with your contacts. Thanks TM.