Sindh needs one million tents for flood victims: Saeed Ghani

Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister Saeed Ghani stated that the province needed over one million tents for temporary shelter for flood victims, and that the concerned international community had been contacted about the urgent humanitarian need, The News reported.

While chairing a meeting to review the flood and post-rain situation in district Mirpurkhas Sunday, the Sindh labour minister admitted that the provincial government was facing an acute shortage of tents for the province's homeless flood victims.

The labour minister directed that an emergency be declared in Civil Hospital, Mirpurkhas, and all taluka hospitals in the district for the urgent treatment of over 100,000 patients suffering from various 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.

Ghani said the 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.

At the meeting, Deputy Commissioner Mipurkhas Zainul Abideen complained that the district had 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 week.

The personnel of law-enforcement agencies needed to be deployed in the Digri, Jhudo, and Sindhri areas of the district for maintaining law and order situations, 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.