Pakistanis searched towns for food today, with some areas facing life-threatening shortages after floods which have killed 1,400 people and highlighted the fragile leadership of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Ethnic violence raging 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. Mr Zardari left for Europe earlier this week on state visits.
It's too early to gauge the economic cost, 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 a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Programme. "That's what we fear. The need to rush to those areas which have been cut off for the past week to provide life-saving food."
In Nowshera, one of the worst-hit areas, 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.
About 1,500 miles away in Pakistan's biggest city and commercial hub Karachi in the south, authorities are trying to contain violence, a constant problem in Pakistan, where the United States 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 in Karachi after the assassination of a member of the dominant political party in the city on Monday. Sixty-two people have been killed since then.
The government blamed Taliban insurgents, and a banned sectarian militant group, for the slaying of Raza Haider.
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 because of fighting between the army and Taliban militants.
The disaster has also, once again, called into question the leadership of Mr Zardari, already hampered by problems ranging from the Taliban, to poverty to chronic power cuts. His current priority appears to be overseas diplomacy.
Mr Zardari and British prime minister David Cameron will this week try to repair relations after openly disagreeing over Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism.
Reuters