Devastating Pakistan floods now threaten food crisis

NOWSHERA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistanis facing life-threatening shortages scoured towns for belongings and food in several areas on Wednesday after floods killed 1,400 people and threw the spotlight on President Asif Ali Zardari's fragile leadership.

Ethnic violence in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi is also piling pressure on the government, widely criticised for its handling of the floods in the northwest, the worst in 80 years, that have devastated the lives of more than three million people.

Zardari left for Europe earlier this week on state visits.

On Wednesday, a suicide bomber killed a senior police officer in the northwestern town of Peshawar, reminding Pakistanis that militants still pose a serious threat despite army crackdowns.

It's too early to gauge the economic cost of the floods but they are likely to be staggering. Pakistan is heavily dependent on foreign aid and its civilian governments have a poor history of managing crises, leaving the powerful military to step in.

"People have lost their food stocks. The markets are not up and running. Shops have collapsed. People are definitely in the greatest need of food," said WFP spokesman Amjad Jamal.

In Nowshera in the northwest, one of the worst-hit areas, former army officer Mohammad Yaseen and other villagers picked through rubble hoping to find food and a few of their belongings. People washed clothes waist deep in water. Rugs hung from the legs of water towers as dozens of bloated buffalo carcasses lay in muddy streets.

"After two days, a helicopter came and dropped some bottles of water and packets of biscuits but nobody tried to evacuate us," he said. "After four days, boats came but the water level had receded and there was no point in leaving the house."

His village of Pashtun Gari was home to about 2,500 families who made their living from dairy farming and wheat harvesting.

Now the village and his house are steeped in mud and the stench of burst sewage lines and dead cows permeates the air.

"We have sent a request to the government and we are getting six helicopters from them and we will be doing air drops to the areas which are cut off," WFP's Jamal told Reuters by telephone.

"A lot of agriculture-based activities have gone under water. So people may not be able to harvest or even sow their crops."

The floods, which started a week ago, are likely to spread as more rains are expected. A breakout of water-borne diseases such as cholera would pose new risks.

Before the waters began raging, more than a million people were already forced from their homes in the northwest by fighting between the army and Taliban militants.

PUNJAB BADLY HIT

Floods struck districts of Laiah, Muzaffargarh, and Dera Ghazi Khan and were nearing the Rajanpur district downstream on Wednesday, rescue and relief officials said.

"This is an unprecedented flood to hit the area, and we have so far evacuated 132,000 people and shifted them to safe areas," Major General Nadir Zeb, overseeing relief efforts in the southern Punjab, told Reuters in Daira Deen Panah in Muzaffargarh.

"People did not expect it would be so huge. We had warned them and asked them to leave, but they simply refused to listen."

Maj. Farooq Feroze, an Army spokesman in southern Punjab, added that "hundreds" of villages had been inundated.

"Announcements were made in mosques and army people were telling us about the upcoming flood, but we thought that they were just scaring us," said a tearful Nazir Sahoo from the rooftop of his single-storey house almost submerged in waters.

At least 1.1 million acres of crops have been destroyed in the Punjab agricultural heartland alone, National Disaster Management Authority spokesman Ahmed Kamal told Reuters.

Zeb said the floodwaters was entering Rajanpur, where Punjab and Sindh provinces meet, and would flow further south in the next two to three days.

KARACHI BLOODSHED

In Karachi in the south, Pakistan's biggest city, authorities are trying to contain violence, a constant problem in Pakistan, where the U.S. wants stability so that its ally can help ease a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

More than a dozen people were killed overnight, deepening fears of more turmoil after the assassination of a member of the dominant political party in the city on Monday. Sixty-two people have been killed since then.

In the Peshawar bloodshed, Sifwat Ghuyur, a police commander who was active in anti-Taliban operations, was killed in an attack on his car as he left his office. His driver was also killed and at least nine people were wounded, police said.

The disaster has called into question the leadership of Zardari, whose current priority appears to be overseas diplomacy.

Zardari and British Prime Minister David Cameron will this week try to repair relations after openly disagreeing over Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism.

Adding to pressure at home, Islamist charities, some tied to militant groups allied with the Taliban and al Qaeda, are competing with the government to provide aid, possibly boosting their credibility.

Pakistani civilians who resettled after being forced to flee fighting in the northwest now face fresh uncertainty. Some had just gone back, hoping to start a new life. Now they must move once again.

"First it was the Taliban, now it's mother nature." said Nawab Ali, 45, who is from Swat Valley.

(Additional reporting by Asim Tanveer, Augustine Anthony and Kamran Haider in Islamabad and Junaid Khan in Swat; reporting and writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Nick Macfie)