The devastating floods that have rolled through Pakistan for over a month now have left a disaster of massive scale in their wake. For a time, an area the size of England was submerged - one fifth of all the land in Pakistan. Although immediate loss of life remains relatively low (near 2,000 according to reports), damages from loss exceed $43 billion, almost one quarter of Pakistan's GDP. As the waters recede Nearly 9 million acres (3.6 million hectares) of existing crops are gone, 1.2 million livestock and 6 million poultry killed, and 17 million of Pakistan's 167 million people affected. It can be difficult to imagine individual stories of need when presented with such huge numbers, to see oneself in another's shoes when their overall predicament seems so vast and dire. Hopefully this collection of photographs from just the past week in Pakistan can help convey some of the stories behind the numbers. One way you can help is by texting "SWAT" to 50555 from your mobile phone to give $10 to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) - more ways to help linked below entry Internally displaced Pakistani women wait for relief goods in Larkana on September 3, 2010. Relief efforts in flood-ravaged Pakistan are being stretched by the "unprecedented scale" of the disaster, while funding has almost stalled, the UN said on September 2. (ADEK BERRY/AFP/Getty Images) 2 A US rescue helicopter carrying Pakistani flood affected victims flies above Kallam, a town of Swat Valley, on September 2, 2010. (A. MAJEED/AFP/Getty Images) 3 A boy stands by a water level mark that shows how the water has gone down to 4 ft (1.2 m) from being previously 12 ft (3.6 m) high in Ulra Jahangir Village September 1, 2010. (REUTERS/Athar Hussain) 4 Amira, 2, a flood victim suffering from skin and stomach problems, cries at a hospital in Sukkur, in Pakistan's Sindh province September 1, 2010. Victims of Pakistan's floods queued at hospitals where scant resources were available to treat a rising number of patients. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 5 Pakistani workers are reflected on furniture as they rebuild homes in the flood-affected town of Sanawa, Punjab province, Pakistan on Thursday Sept. 2, 2010. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) 6 An Afghan refugee whose house was demolished by heavy flooding, washes himself amidst the rubble in Azakhel near Peshawar, Pakistan Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010. Thousands of Afghan refugees here are struggling to recover from a double tragedy, seeing their homes across the border engulfed by war and then their refugee camps here demolished by floods. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad) 7 A technician stands in an operating theater in a Pakistani hospital with equipment ruined by floodwaters (note high-water mark on the walls) in Nowshera, Pakistan on August 27, 2010. When water gushed through the walls of Nowshera hospital last month it filled operating rooms and wards and left them clogged with stinking mud, abandoning hundreds of patients to their fate. (AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images) 8 Trucks transporting relief goods are blocked on the road by Pakistani farmers demanding that the government irrigate their lands in Shikarpur on September 3, 2010. Fresh floods in southern Pakistan are snaring at least a million people displaced by earlier flooding, adding to the huge problems faced by the underfunded relief effort, UN aid agencies warned. (ADEK BERRY/AFP/Getty Images) 9 Displaced flood survivors receive relief at a roadside in Nowshera, Pakistan on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad) 10 A flood victim left without receiving aid for three days climbs a truck to reach for food handouts donated by a group calling themselves Muslim brothers in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province September 2, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 11 A Turkish doctor gives treatment to a Pakistani woman displaced by floods at a makeshift field medical camp in Thatta district on September 2, 2010. (RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP/Getty Images) 12 Mohammad Ramzan, a flood victim, places his hand on the door that was left after his house was washed away by flood in the Mehmood Kot village in Muzaffargarh district of Pakistan's Punjab province September 3, 2010. (REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood) 13 A flood-affected Pakistani man watches the flood waters rushing over the ruined road from Shahdad Kot to Garhi Khairo, as he and others wait for boats to transport them home on September 3, 2010. (ADEK BERRY/AFP/Getty Images) 14 A boy who is a victim of the flood rests on his bed at a relief camp in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province September 2, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 15 Pakistani flood survivors wait for relief, as they return to their home after flood waters receded on the outskirts of Thatta town, Sindh province, southern Pakistan, Friday, Sept. 3, 2010. The waters are still swamping rich agricultural land in the southern provinces of Sindh and Punjab. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian) 16 Internally displaced Pakistani women queue for relief goods in Larkana on September 3, 2010. (ADEK BERRY/AFP/Getty Images) 17 Flood victims look through the gates of a warehouse hoping to get some aid in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province September 5, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 18 An aerial view shows a flooded mosque in a village in Sujawal, about 150 km (93 mi) from Karachi in Pakistan's Sindh province, August 29, 2010. (REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro) 19 Flood victims who had received no aid for three days run after a truck to reach for food donated by a group calling themselves Muslim brothers in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province September 2, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 20 A man who returned to his village affected by recent floods fishes behind a decomposing remains of a dog in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district on September 3, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 21 Pakistani men affected by floods ride on a boat strapped to a truck as they travel in Muzaffargarh district, Punjab province, Pakistan on Friday Sept. 3, 2010. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) 22 An internally displaced Pakistani man (center, in cap) fights with a policeman (right, white shirt) as they wait for relief goods in Larkana on September 3, 2010. Flood victims say they have received little government help, and most assistance has come to them from private charities. The International Committee of the Red Cross warned Thursday that survivors' anger was beginning to hamper those aid efforts. (ADEK BERRY/AFP/Getty Images) 23 A Pakistani girl reacts after she loses her juice packs, during a scramble for relief goods at a camp for people displaced by floods in the village of Chowk Ghulam Ali Wala, Punjab province, Pakistan on Friday Sept. 3, 2010. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) 24 An aerial view shows the mudflow surrounding a house as floodwaters recede in some parts of the Rajanpur district of Punjab province, Pakistan on Sunday Sept. 5, 2010. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) 25 Men return to their village destroyed by recent floods in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province September 3, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 26 A flood victim collects bricks from abandoned buildings where her family found shelter in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district on September 4, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 27 Ali Asghar, a flood victim, tunes his radio to listen for news while taking refuge on an embankment with his family in Sujawal, in Pakistan's Sindh province on August 29, 2010. (REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro) 28 A Pakistani woman displaced by floods holds her child as she waits for relief goods at a Pakistani Navy distribution point in a makeshift camp in Thatta district on September 2, 2010. (RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP/Getty Images) 29 A flood victim uses part of a damaged railway track to cross floodwaters as he makes his way to a village in Sultan Kot, about 51 km (31 mi) from Sukkur on August 31, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 30 Asia, 15, whose wedding was canceled after she lost her home, clothes and jewelery in recent floods passes the time in a family shelter in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district on September 5, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 31 A severely malnourished baby is taken to the hospital by her brother in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district on September 4, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 32 Flood victims struggle for clean water from a tanker truck in Thatta in southern Sindh province on August 30, 2010. Pakistani troops and workers were on a "war footing" over the weekend battling to save the southern city of Thatta after most of the 300,000 population fled the advancing waters. (ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images) 33 Pakistani children who survived heavy flooding lie covered with flies as they are forced to live in miserable conditions on a roadside in Nowshera near Pesharwar, Pakistan on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad) 34 An aerial photo shows Rajan Pur, partly submerged in floodwaters near Multan, Pakistan on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010. (AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer) 35 Pakistani villagers who survived heavy flooding, work to remove mud from their house on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan Monday, Aug. 30, 2010. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad) 36 A man holds his daughter as he and other flood victims find shelter from a storm in an abandoned building in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district on September 4, 2010. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) 37 Survivors wade through floodwater to return their home in Sujawat, Sindh province, Southern Pakistan, Sept 4, 2010. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian) 38 A Pakistani girl carrying her belongings on her head wades through flood waters in Punjab province's Basira on September 4, 2010. (CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images) 39 A Pakistani volunteer rescues a child as they travel on a vehicle provided by United Arab Emirates (UAE) as they evacuate the flood-hit Sujawal in southern Sindh province, on August 30, 2010. (ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images) 40 Pakistan army soldiers in a boat search for flood survivors in Khairpur Nathan Shah on September 5, 2010. (ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images) 41 Flood victims queue for aid provided by Sitara Chemical Industries Ltd in Sanawan, Punjab province Pakistan, on September 5, 2010. (CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images) 42 A boy helps his father rebuild their flood-damaged house in Muzaffargarh district, Punjab province, Pakistan on Tuesday Aug. 31, 2010. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) 43 A young flood victim looks on at a relief camp in Nowshera in northwestern Pakistan on September 3, 2010. Pakistan's northwest, the first region to be hit by the floods and the most devastated, now has roads lined with tents and tens of thousands of displaced waiting to go home. (REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl) |
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