PAKISTAN: Churches launch emergency relief program following devastating floods
Episcopal News Service. August 2, 2010 [080210-03]
ENS staff
The Diocese of Peshawar has launched an emergency relief and rescue program for families affected by the recent monsoons and flooding in Pakistan as the death toll from the natural disaster rose above 1,200.
The program is assisting more than 1,300 Christian and Hindu families, as well as other minorities and some Muslim church workers, according to an e-mail sent from the Peshawar diocese to church partners. The diocese is providing affected families with food.
The United Nations has estimated that almost one million people have been affected by the flooding, 45 bridges destroyed, and thousands of houses swept away.
The diocesan e-mail noted that monsoon rains "have caused havoc all over Pakistan, but the Khyber Pakhtunkwa province has been hit hard by the floods. Thousands of villages are under water and hundreds of people are either dead or missing. All road links within the province have been cut down."
Several Christian families have been rescued and accommodated at St. Mary's Church and School in Risalpur and at Christ Church and School in Nowshera, the release said. "The diocese is putting all its efforts to reach the unreached caught in the floods."
Episcopal Relief & Development staff members say the agency will be contacting the Diocese of Peshawar in the coming days.
The Diocese of Peshawar is part of the Church of Pakistan, a united ecumenical province of the Anglican Communion that was established in 1970 with a union of Anglicans, Scottish Presbyterians (Church of Scotland), Methodists, and Lutherans.