(Uruknet) – On August 22 a drone strike against the house of “suspected militants” in North Waziristan killed 20 people. It also destroyed a neighboring house full of women and children.[1] So what! Collateral damage. And, as our dear Mr. Rumsfeld once said [2] – ‘Shit happens. Get over it.’

On July 28, the dams burst in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area of north-western Pakistan after unprecedented monsoon rains. In the next few days the news was slowly trickling out to the world of the imminent disaster from the worst floods in Pakistan’s history.

The North-West Frontier Province, however, had already been hit by disaster long before the monsoon rains started flooding the countryside, uprooting hundreds of thousands of people. The region had already been ravaged by the terrible fighting between Islamic militants and the Pakistani Armed Forces. Millions of people had already fled from their homes and their livelihoods.

Yet, Western reaction to these events, or even knowledge thereof, was practically nil. Read More Here

(WSWS) – More than a million additional people fled their homes in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh over the past few days as flood waters threatened further cities and towns. While authorities reported yesterday that waters were receding at least temporarily, large areas of the country are devastated and around 20 million people displaced. Read the rest of this entry »

(IND) – Up to a million people have fled their homes in the past two days, as floods, never seen on such a scale, continue to sweep south Read More Here

(GlobalResearch) – ” .. to wade through slaughter … and shut the gates of mercy on mankind.” Thomas Gray (1716-1771.)

The scale of the disaster caused by the floods in Pakistan, is barely comprehensible. As Juan Cole has written, expressing near disbelief : “The submerged area of the country is as big as the United Kingdom, fourteen million Pakistanis are affected, two million are homeless.” Six million need immediate relief, according to the UN., and thirty six thousand are suffering from acute diarrhoeal symptoms, with cholera already diagnosed. 1,600 are reported dead, with the number certain to multiply. Famine is a real possibility.

The great Indus river, one of the world’s longest, which flows also through China, India and Kashmir, rising in Tibet and flowing in to the Arabian Sea, has flooded Sindh and Balochistan provinces, forcing the evacuation of over ninety percent of the villages. With no place to hide, people watched their homes washed away, in a monsoon season that continues through September. Hundreds of villages are inundated or completely under water, with roads, rail links, thus transportation cut, as frantic people try to flee to safer ground. It is the worst flooding in the country’s history, with some experts saying the region worst affected for nearly one hundred years. A far wider area is now threatened. Read the rest of this entry »

(GlobalResearch) – ” .. to wade through slaughter … and shut the gates of mercy on mankind.” Thomas Gray (1716-1771.)

The scale of the disaster caused by the floods in Pakistan, is barely comprehensible. As Juan Cole has written, expressing near disbelief : “The submerged area of the country is as big as the United Kingdom, fourteen million Pakistanis are affected, two million are homeless.” Six million need immediate relief, according to the UN., and thirty six thousand are suffering from acute diarrhoeal symptoms, with cholera already diagnosed. 1,600 are reported dead, with the number certain to multiply. Famine is a real possibility.

The great Indus river, one of the world’s longest, which flows also through China, India and Kashmir, rising in Tibet and flowing in to the Arabian Sea, has flooded Sindh and Balochistan provinces, forcing the evacuation of over ninety percent of the villages. With no place to hide, people watched their homes washed away, in a monsoon season that continues through September. Hundreds of villages are inundated or completely under water, with roads, rail links, thus transportation cut, as frantic people try to flee to safer ground. It is the worst flooding in the country’s history, with some experts saying the region worst affected for nearly one hundred years. A far wider area is now threatened. Read the rest of this entry »

The State of New York Division of Cemeteries has sent out “Mass Fatality forms” to cemeteries in that state to collect data about their ability to deal with the high volume of casualties that would occur if their were a flu pandemic or other disaster. The form letter that this office received was dated April 4, 2007 [pdf], so clearly preparation for such disasters has been ongoing for some time.

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The Canadian military is reorganizing its priorities to suit a “post 9/11-world,” by creating reservist units for each area of the country that would be tasked with providing “domestic security,” and involve roles such as the mass internment of citizens in the event of a terrorist attack.

Read the rest of this entry »