WALTHAMSTOW: Flood victims still need help (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

WALTHAMSTOW: Flood victims still need help

4:36pm Monday 24th January 2011 in Waltham Forest News By Safira Ali

SIX months after devastating floods hit Pakistan, a Walthamstow woman is helping families from the worst-hit region get back on their feet.

Penny Sims, 36, of Cleveland Park Avenue, flew out to the Sindh province on New Year’s Day to help raise awareness of the disaster and to oversee relief work.

Miss Sims, who works for the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), is currently visiting villages as people start to move back into their former homes or emergency camp sites.

The devastating floods affected 20 million people in the Punjab and Sindh regions in July. Much of the Sindh region is still under water.

Miss Sims said: “Six months on people think the water must have gone and everything must be going back to normal, but the area is still flooded.

“People are only just starting to go back home. There is the same level of structural damage as there was in Haiti.

“I went to a village, Bora Lakhar, this morning which had been flooded within two hours. They had no time to take anything with them.

“One family has returned and had no idea what they were coming back to.

“There was three feet of silt in the house and all their belongings were buried. In some cases the water cleaned out people’s belongings and took them away.”

The IFRC is helping families who are starting to either move back into their homes or rebuild them. The charity is also providing emergency shelter, grants for repairs and agricultural tools and seeds in areas where the land is usable.

“I am speaking to people now they are coming back to their homes about what they want next,” Miss Sims said.

“People are very strong and resilient but they are coming back to a depressing situation.

“It’s very traumatic. Some are suffering flashbacks and are having nightmares about it. If they hear running water in the drains they think it is flood water.

“There is some food available but the prices have gone up by 400 per cent. It is very difficult to buy the food.”

The charity is providing food aid in the short term and looking at long-term projects to help families rebuild their livelihoods.

She added that, like many major disasters, the recovery will take years rather than months.