1m tents required for flood victims in Sindh: Ghani

KARACHI: Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister Saeed Ghani has said that the province required over one million tents for the temporary shelter of the flood victims adding that the concerned international community had been approached for the urgent humanitarian need.

Chairing a meeting to review the flood and post-rain situation in district Mirpurkhas on Sunday, the Sindh labour minister conceded that the provincial government had been facing an acute shortage of tents for the temporary accommodation of the homeless flood victims in the province.

The labour minister instructed the officials concerned to declare an emergency in Civil Hospital, Mirpurkhas and all taluka hospitals of the district for urgent treatment of over 100,000 patients with different contagious diseases.

He said that more tests should be conducted for early detection of different contagious diseases, including Malaria and Dengue fever. He also directed the health officials to take special preventive measures against the spread of diarrhoea among the calamity-hit people.

Sindh Labour Department and its subsidiary Sindh Employees Social Security Institution would provide assistance to the district administration in setting up medical camps for emergency treatment of the flood victims, said Ghani.

Briefing the meeting, Deputy Commissioner Mipurkhas Zainul Abideen complained that the district received only 3,000 tents from the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) against its requirement of 100,000 tents, adding that the PDMA had not provided any assistance to the district administration for the past one week.

The personnel of law-enforcement agencies needed to be deployed in Digri, Jhudo, and Sindhri areas of the district for maintaining law and order situation, said the deputy commissioner, adding that the district administration was also in need of special vehicles for supplying relief goods to the flood victims in the inundated areas. He said as many as 57 relief camps were established in different parts of the district for the temporary shelter of the homeless flood victims.