Maps help

Ever wonder how relief workers know where to go when a region’s infrastructure is washed away and millions of refugees are stranded over vast distances? Dutch hydrologist Michael van der Valk sent this link from Hydrology.nl to Mapping Pakistan’s Floods. To see how international agencies are working together to track the water that has now impacted almost 20 million people, click here. To enlarge the UN map above, double click on the image. Thanks to Michael Campana of WaterWired for linking to Feriha Peracha’s heart-breaking account from the Swat Valley, and for in addition to Red Cross further offering this new link to aid organizations at work in Pakistan. From Michael: “Don’t look down on anyone unless you are helping them up.” — Pakistani proverb

The week that was, 8/22-28/2010

Bullets rain on the Swat Valley in a drawing done by one of Feriha Peracha's students school for "Taliban" survivors. August flooding has brought fresh anguish to the already chaotic and deadly region that Peracha remembers as paradisal during her childhood visits. Source: American Public Media's 'The Story.' Click on the drawing to be taken to Dick Gordon's interview with Peracha.

As we remember the tragic delays after Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana coast five years ago today, arguably the single most meaningful way that we can mark the anniversary is to help the millions in Pakistan whose livelihoods are being washed away now, who are desperate now.

For a glimpse of the horror being visited on that country by unprecedented monsoonal flooding, and the bewilderment and desperation of the people in the path of the water, there is no better sampling than Dick Gordon’s August 25, 2010 interview with

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