By Zeeshan Haider
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was due to visit flood-hit areas on Thursday after coming under fire over his foreign trips and his government's perceived slow response to the country's worst ever natural disaster.
The floods triggered by torrential monsoon downpours have scoured Pakistan's Indus river basin, killing more than 1,600 people, forcing 2 million from their homes and disrupting the lives of about 14 million people, or 8 percent of the population.
The deluge, which began two weeks ago, has caused extensive damage to the country's main crops, agriculture officials said, after the United Nations issued an appeal for $459 million (292 million pounds) in emergency aid.
"Yes, it looks like he's coming," said an official in the president's office who declined to give details of Zardari's plans for security reasons.
Zardari, widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, set off on visits to meet the leaders of Britain and France as the floods were beginning, drawing howls of criticism from his many critics at home.
Agriculture is a mainstay of the economy. The International Monetary Fund has warned of major economic harm and the Finance Ministry said the country would miss this year's 4.5 percent gross domestic product growth target though it was not clear by how much.
Zardari, who has failed to match the popularity of his charismatic wife, returned home on Tuesday and has since been in the southern city of Karachi meeting officials about the crisis.
Officials from the government and international agencies are still assessing the extent of the flood damage, but a spokesman for U.N. humanitarian operations said a third of the country had been affected.
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
Hundreds of roads and bridges have been destroyed from northern mountains to the plains of the southern province of Sindh, where the waters have not yet crested.
Countless villages and farms have been inundated, crops destroyed and livestock lost. In some places, families are huddled on tiny patches of water-logged land with their animals, surrounded by an inland sea.
The costs of rehabilitating the agriculture sector could run into the billions of dollars, said U.N. humanitarian operations spokesman Maurizio Giuliano.
The wheat, cotton and sugar crops have all suffered significant damage and the United Nations has warned of a second wave of death among survivors from disease and food shortages unless help arrives quickly.
Investors in Pakistani stocks have been fretting about the costs and the market has lost 5.37 percent since the floods began. The market was closed on Thursday for the first day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
The military, which has ruled the country for more than half of its 63-year history, has taken the lead in relief efforts, reinforcing the faith many Pakistanis have in their armed forces and highlighting the comparative ineffectiveness of civilian governments.
Analysts say the armed forces would not try to take power as they have vowed to shun politics and are busy fighting militants.
(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony, Michael Georgy; Writing by Robert Birsel, editing by Miral Fahmy)
