Donations below expectations: UN.

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 13 -- After the United Nations launched $459.7 million Flood Emergency Response Plan on Wednesday, the assistance reaching Humanitarian Community through various sources is yet too short of meeting the requirements.

The Humanitarian Community in Pakistan along with National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) were trying to reach out the affected people but their selective efforts are negligible as compared to the volume of the catastrophe.

So far, donors have contributed $47.8 million to the response activities of international humanitarian organisations, and a further $99.5 million has been pledged.

"Shelter is an urgent priority and $105 million is required to provide tents or plastic sheeting, as well as basic household goods, for an initial target of over 2 million people, who are homeless and forced to sleep in open," said Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Mogwanja addressing a news conference.

Mogwanja was also accompanied by Wolfgang Harbinger from Food Security Cluster, Manuel Bessler Head of Office of UNOCHA, Mengesha Kebede from Protection Cluster, Christopher Lom from Shelter Cluster and Dr Ahmed Farah Shadoul.

"We are working round the clock to get these items manufactured and delivered. I can confidently say that the response could not be any faster and 0.5 million have been provided tents and sheets," Mogwanja said.

To a query, Harbinger said, three centres have been set up in Peshawar, Multan and Sukkur to provide food items to 380,000 affectees. "We have reached out to two million people in 10 days. Five factories are working and 200 trucks are on the move. But access is still a problem."

He said, people around the world have seen the daily images of destruction from across the length and breadth of Pakistan on their television screens and on the internet. "The magnitude of this disaster is such that no country, however well prepared, could provide all the emergency shelter and other help that families now camped out in terrible conditions on river banks now need."

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