As Pakistan's flood waters continue to engulf towns and villages
bordering the Indus river in southern Sindh, the need for emergency
shelter for the victims is continuing to grow.

"Shelter cluster agencies and the government are working round
the clock to bring in tents, plastic sheets, blankets and other
relief items. But we estimate that over five million people are
still in desperate need of shelter and we do not yet have the
sufficient capacity or resources to provide it," says IOM Regional
Representative for West and Central Asia, Hassan Abdel Moneim
Mostafa.

One month after the onset of the disaster, IOM's initial appeal
to donors for USD 38 million over three months, which will be
revised upwards next week, is currently 55 per cent funded with
confirmed pledges of USD 21 million. Donors include the USA, the
UK, Canada, Sweden and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund.

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According to the government's National Disaster Management
Authority (NDMA) the number of houses destroyed or damaged by the
floods is now approaching 1.25 million. The floods have submerged
some 3.2 million hectares or 14 per cent of the country's
cultivated land and left thousands of farming families destitute
and homeless.

IOM and other relief organizations working in southern Sindh are
struggling to deliver shelter and other aid to communities cut off
by flood waters and damaged roads and bridges.

In Thatta district, IOM today completed a distribution of 6,000
plastic sheets, 1,800 blankets and 1,200 jerry cans to provide
basic aid to 3,000 families. This follows a delivery of 500 shelter
kits (1,000 plastic sheets) to the district last week.

An estimated 1,300 km2 of land was inundated in Thatta last
week, following a breach in the Surjani dyke. Some 400,000 people
are now camped out on higher ground on the outskirts of Makli, near
Thatta city and along the 138-kilometer Karachi-Hyderabad
highway.

To date IOM and partner Emergency Shelter Cluster agencies
including Save the Children, FSWO, SPO, Action Youth Pakistan and
GOAL have provided some 8,300 plastic sheets, 8,100 blankets, 6,600
kitchen sets and 6,600 jerry cans to flood victims in Sindh.

The 40 agencies comprising the cluster, which is coordinated by
IOM, have now provided emergency shelter and non food relief items
to some 1.2 million flood victims nationwide. Their procurement
pipeline will currently meet the needs of another 2.3 million
people.

For more information on IOM's activities in Pakistan, to
download the IOM Appeal or to donate to IOM's flood response,
please go to: "/jahia/Jahia/pakistan" target="" title=
"">http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pakistan.

For information on the Emergency Shelter Cluster, please go to:
"https://sites.google.com/site/shelterpak2010/" target="_blank"
title="">https://sites.google.com/site/shelterpak2010/.

For additional information please contact:

Saleem Rehmat

IOM Islamabad

Tel: +92.3008560341

E-mail: "mailto:srehmat@iom.int">srehmat@iom.int

or

Eliane Engeler

Tel: +92.300 852 6357

E-mail: "mailto:engeler.iom@gmail.com">engeler.iom@gmail.com