Pakistan: A Lifetime, Washed Away

Read this poignant article by Daniyal Mueendin and you may want to reach for a donation button: NYT

Here' s a couple:
Hong Kong msf donation online
Oxfam Hong Kong donation online

By the way, Hong Kong Government's Disaster Relief Fund has in the last couple of months approved grants for flood relief in Gansu province, China of approximately HK$22.33 million and is now seeking to provide a further HK$50 million.

To date, the Disaster Relief Fund has approved grants for relief in Pakistan of HK$5.3 million.

Now the impulse to aid "compatriots' is understandable.

But given the fact at least eight million 15+ million Pakistanis are now wholly destitute, that many find themselves with little or no shelter, hungry, bereft of a safe supply of drinking water while vulnerable to water-borne diseases, that five million dollars is not going to go very far.

These are at least eight million 15+ million people who have lost homes, chattels, property, and loved ones. Their infrastructure has been washed away and they are saddled with what is, in the main, a venal, corrupt, incompetent political class.

"The loss of property, however, is catastrophic. It is as if a neutron bomb exploded overhead, but instead of killing the people and leaving their houses intact, it piled trees upon the houses and swept away the villages and crops and animals, leaving the people alive."

Eight million Fifteen plus million people are living among ruins, their own lives ruined. So, perhaps the DRF could look at quickly increasing the amount of money it is feeding to relief agencies who are on the ground in Pakistan.

Yes?