World shouldn't ignore Pakistan's plight

As United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's plane flew over flood-ravaged Pakistan recently, he commented that he had never seen anything quite so terrible. The "unprecedented floods will require an unprecedented response," said the U.N.'s top official.

That is the last thing a disaster-weary world wanted to hear. It seems that natural disasters have been coming with troubling regularity. There was the massive earthquake in Haiti in January, followed by an earthquake 500 times stronger a month later in Chile and another powerful quake in Qinghai, China, in April.

Now come the Pakistan floods.

Haiti has seen the greatest outpouring of relief, perhaps because it needed it the most and the death toll was so alarming - an estimated 200,000 - due in large measure to population density and shoddy building construction. By contrast, Chile experienced fewer than 900 deaths despite a far stronger quake.

Pakistan has seen an estimated 1,600 deaths, but that does not tell the entire story. The floods provided the opportunity for people to escape, but if disease and malnutrition take hold, the numbers could rise dramatically.

The scope of the catastrophe is staggering. The flooding swelled the Indus River, which divides Pakistan as it runs north to south, into an inland lake. About 20 percent of the country is affected, a 62,000-square-mile impact area nearly the size of New England.

The flooding has adversely affected about 20 million people, about six times the population of Connecticut, displacing many of them at least temporarily. More ominous for the long-term stability of the struggling nation is the amount of damage to its infrastructure.

According to government estimates, which may prove rosy, about 5,000 miles of roads and railways were washed away, as were 400 health facilities and 700 schools. Torrents of rushing flood waters destroyed great chunks of the Karakoram Highway, an engineering marvel constructed by China and providing a vital economic link to that country.

Some Pakistani leaders have decried what they see as a too-slow response compared with other large-scale disasters, such as Haiti and the 2004 Indonesia tsunami that killed more than 220,000.

For humanitarian and security reasons, the free world does need to launch a massive relief effort. The immediate needs will be for clean water, food and shelter. In the longer term, large swaths of Pakistan need rebuilding. The world should not turn a blind eye.

Aside from a moral duty, practically speaking the West cannot afford to see Pakistan become further destabilized. It is a nuclear-armed country with a hair-trigger, adverse relationship with neighboring nuclear-armed India. It is also a vital ally, though not an always reliable one, in the fight against insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan.

Among the regions most severely affected was the Swat Valley, where the Pakistan military had some recent success against Taliban rebels but which could quickly slip back into lawlessness.

Congress just last year approved a $7.5 billion American aid package for Pakistan. Given the flooding, both U.S. and Pakistani officials must re-evaluate how to best utilize that aid. The U.S. is also assisting the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank in conducting damage and needs assessments. The U.N. must lead an international relief effort once that assessment is ready.

As with Haiti, the unseen benefit could be the chance to build a better Pakistan.