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Pakistan will need at least three years to recover from the devastating floods that have swept across the country for more than three weeks, the country's president has said.
Asif Ali Zardari warned that the displacement and economic hardship caused by the floods could spark widespread unrest. He also defended his government's response, saying no country would have been able to effectively handle the floods.
"There is no way any nation, even if it's a superpower... can bring the same level of satisfaction that will be close to the expectations of people," Zardari said in an interview in Islamabad with a small group of foreign reporters.
Flooding has killed more than 1,500 people, according to the United Nations, and affected more than 17 million. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been destroyed, and more than 1.7m acres of farmland are underwater.
"I don't think Pakistan will ever fully recover, but we will move on," Zardari said.
Sindh threatened
The waters are once again threatening southern Sindh province, where the Indus river has reached dangerously high levels at the Kotri barrage.
Flooding has already submerged a number of villages in Thatta and Larkana districts in Sindh. Workers have frantically piled sandbags and rebuilt levees, and hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from the area.
Authorities estimated that 90 per cent of the 350,000 residents of the city of Shahad Kot have already fled.
More than 18km of new levees have already been built in Shahad Kot and nearby Qambar, but authorities worry that the rising floodwaters may top those barriers. The floods have been racing south down the Indus for several days.
'Epidemic diseases'
Millions of people displaced by the floods have yet to receive any aid, and the UN said on Tuesday that more than 800,000 people have been cut off, reachable only by air.
Pakistani officials and aid organizations continue to warn of the threat of a disease epidemic. The UN says more than 3.5m children are at risk of waterborne diseases. And the flooding has ravaged Pakistan's medical system: More than 200 hospitals and clinics are damaged.
Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani prime minister, warned on Tuesday that the country should prepare for an epidemic.
"As human misery continues to mount, we are seriously concerned with the spread of epidemic diseases," he said during a visit to a makeshift health clinic.
PHOTO CAPTION
A Pakistan Army helicopter flies over flood waters near Thul, in Sindh province, southern Pakistan Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010.
Al-Jazeera
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