How are different people affected by floods?

How many people were affected by floods as Pakistan continue to issue and alert citizens to brace for the disaster?

• Answer:

  Pakistan issued new flood warnings and the country on Wednesday faced a "serious humanitarian disaster" after downpours which have affected 3.2 million people and killed up to 1,500. A week into the crisis and as more monsoon rains lashed the country, anger was reaching boiling point among impoverished survivors complaining that they had been abandoned by the government after their livelihoods were swept away. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was to chair an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday to estimate the damages -- expected to run into millions of dollars -- and speed up the relief work. "This is a serious humanitarian disaster," the UN humanitarian coordinator for Pakistan, Martin Mogwanja, told AFP, saying that discussions were under way to determine whether the situation warranted a fresh appeal for donor aid. The United Nations said clean drinking water and sanitation were urgently needed to stop disease spreading after Pakistan's worst floods in 80 years following relentless monsoon rains. Nadeem Ahmad, chairman of Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority, estimated that roughly three million people were affected -- 1.5 million in the northwest and the same number in central province Punjab. About 1.4 million were children, said Marco Jimenez Rodriguez, a spokesman for UNICEF. Authorities in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa issued an alert to people living around Warsak Dam, one of the country's biggest dams and lying outside Peshawar, as water levels rose. Pakistan's weather bureau forecast widespread rains in the southern province of Sindh, Punjab, Pakistani-held Kashmir, the hard-hit northwest and southwestern Baluchistan over the next three days. Flash flooding was expected in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Baluchistan, it warned, with heavy thunderstorms in the capital Islamabad. The military, Pakistan's most powerful institution, said more than 54,000 people had been rescued from flood-hit areas and moved to safer places, with 40 helicopters and 450 army boats mobilised as part of the rescue effort. Anger was growing among survivors as President Asif Ali Zardari pressed on with a visit to Europe. "Zardari should visit the flood-hit areas and take steps for the welfare of the stranded people instead of taking joy rides to France and the UK," said Sher Khan, 40, in Majuky Faqirabad, one of the worst affected villages. The president made a trip to his family's stately home in the French countryside on Tuesday before travelling on to London to begin a five-day visit.