Summary
16 August 2010
The UN has warned that up to 3.5 million children in Pakistan are at high risk from diseases following the flood disaster. It says an urgent increase in funding would significantly help to reduce the risk.
Reporter
Mike Wooldridge
The UN has called for more aid.
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Report
As new areas of land in southern Pakistan succumb to the floodwaters, the UN is stepping up the urgency of its warnings about the threat from waterborne diseases.
This also follows confirmation from the UN over the weekend of the first case of cholera.
UN officials say access to vulnerable children has improved and the relief operation now has the capacity to respond; it's primarily about funding.
They say that being able to deliver more safe drinking water would make an immediate difference to saving the lives of children.
But the UN's appeal for $110 million for the water-related aspects of the relief operation has only been met to the tune of $19 million.
Mike Wooldridge, 大象传媒 News, Islamabad
Click to hear the vocabulary:
Vocabulary
- succumb
are lost or defeated
- floodwaters
excessive water from rivers that has covered the land
- stepping up
increasing
- urgency
pressure to do something immediately
- waterborne diseases
illnesses that are carried by or through water
- confirmation
proof that something is true
- cholera
a serious infection of the bowels, passed on through dirty water
- vulnerable
unprotected; exposed to harm or danger
- relief operation
action to help people after a disaster
- to the tune of
to more or less this amount
