Pakistan floods: victim number exceeds tsunami
(Could the RUSSIAN HEATWAVE and the PAKISTAN FLOODING been linked to a problem with the jetstream ? ).
By Channel 4 News
As Pakistan counts more flood victims than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake combined,
Islamic Relief tells Channel 4 News of the "worst scenes of human suffering".
The floods, which first struck the country 10 days ago, have affected 13m people, the UN said today, in an area twice the size of Britain...
Turbo-charged monsoon confounds forecasters
Normally the jet stream is a giant loop of high speed winds that whip round the upper atmosphere, writes science correspondent Tom Clarke.
The jet stream isn't involved in day to day weather - it's too high up - but because it pushes the atmosphere around it's very important in steering large scale weather patterns below.
The stream has split in two. One arm has gone north, another south. The patch in the middle is Russia's drought. A circulating pattern of air has been sitting over Russia for far longer than normal,
causing the extreme temperatures and wildfires they've had there.
But what's happening over Pakistan is even stranger. The southern arm of the Jet stream has looped down so far it has crossed over the Himalayas into north western Pakistan.
Experts at the Met Office tell me this is very unusual.
And the result is that the fast moving jets stream winds high up has helped suck the warm, wet, monsoon air even faster and higher into the atmosphere - and that has caused rains like no-one can remember.
It has turbo charged the monsoon if you like. They're not sure that's ever happened before...
More explanation in this video :
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid62612474001?bctid=490959221001
'No help' from government
A resident in the badly hit village of Kot Addu, Mohammed Saleem – whose house and grocery store were wiped out by the flood – said they had seen no state aid.
"We have not received any help from the government so far and I am sure any foreign help that will come will never reach us," he said.
The president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, has faced major criticism for his behaviour in the crisis. He continued with a tour of France and the UK, saying that his prime minister would deal with the flooding.
Over the weekend the president revealed he was donating five million rupees – around £36,500 – to the victims.
The monsoon season in Pakistan is only about half way through, with rains set to continue through August. More heavy rain is expected in the next 36 hours, and there are now concerns that two of the world's biggest dams,
in the northwest of the country, could be reaching capacity.
Aid agencies said that billions of dollars may be needed in humanitarian relief in the coming months, and to rebuild the country's infrastructure and economy long-term.
"Our country has gone back several years," Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters on a visit to Sindh province.
Source :
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/asia_pacific/pakistan+floods+struggle+to+reach+victims/3738877
