UN Chief: Pakistan Flooding 'Unprecedented'

Aid needs to be stepped up: Ban Ki-moon

By Polly Davis Doig, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 15, 2010 5:50 PM CDT

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UN Chief: Pakistan Flooding 'Unprecedented' — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today he has never seen anything like the flood disaster in Pakistan and urged foreign donors to speed up assistance. (AP Photo/United Nations, Evan Shneider)

Ban Ki-moon has toured his share of disaster areas, but the UN secretary-general said today that he's never seen anything on the scope of the floods that have rolled through Pakistan, displacing some 20 million people. Ban urged the international community to step up the pace of aid donations, saying: "Waves of flood must be met with waves of support from the world. I'm here to urge the world to step up assistance.

"This has been a heart-wrenching day for me," Ban added. "I will never forget the destruction and suffering I have witnessed today. In the past I have witnessed many natural disasters around the world, but nothing like this." The UN has toured China after the Sichuan earthquake and Myanmar in the wake of the cyclone, reports the AP.
(More Pakistan stories.)

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