SUKKUR, Pakistan — President Asif Ali Zardari sought to fend off Thursday public outcry over his response to Pakistan's catastrophic floods by visiting a hard-hit area for the first time and handing out aid.
Zardari has come under fire from victims, the political opposition and critics for last week failing to cut short a visit to Europe in order to deal personally with what is now the country's worst humanitarian crisis.
The president visited Sukkur, which lies close to the worst affected areas in the southern province of Sindh, where he was briefed about the damages, steps being taken, relief and rehabilitation efforts, officials said.
Pakistan's state television PTV broadcast silent footage of Zardari, who comes from Sindh, wearing a traditional cap and patting the head of an elderly women before visiting Sukkur barrage and viewing the water flow.
A local government official told AFP that he distributed relief goods among flood victims at a camp in a college, assuring survivors that the government was doing the maximum possible to assist them.
"Don't feel alone. We are here with you and will do everything to get you resettled as soon as possible," the official quoted Zardari as saying.
Pakistan's government says 14 million people face direct or indirect harm from the floods. The United Nations believes 1,600 people have died in the floods, while Pakistan has confirmed 1,243 deaths.
The Islamabad government has admitted to being overwhelmed, and hardline Islamic charities have conducted a highly visible aid effort on the ground.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Zardari defended his decision not to cut short his overseas tour by saying he had used his talks in London and Paris to drum up desperately needed foreign aid for the tragedy.
"I might have benefited personally from the political symbolism of being in the country at the time of natural disaster. But hungry people can't eat symbols. The situation demanded action and I acted to mobilise the world."
The United Nations has appealed for 460 million dollars in foreign aid and although water levels are receding in some areas, survivors of record floods are facing grim conditions in makeshift tent cities under unbearable heat.
"The water level is receding in Sindh and Swat rivers and the water tendency is falling at Tarbela dam in the northwest," Arif Mehmood, Pakistan's chief meteorologist, told AFP.
Another Pakistani river, the Chenab, is also going down, he said.
The United States, which has put Pakistan on the frontline of its war on Al-Qaeda, announced the deployment of an amphibious assault ship, taking the number of US helicopters available for the relief effort to 19.
The relief focus was switching to an estimated two million people who require shelter after fleeing flood-hit areas, as tents spring up along main roads and on the edge of major towns and cities.
"We estimate that at least two million require shelter and we've provided a quarter of that already," Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told AFP.
"Today the deliveries of tents and other shelter materials has started in Punjab and we're gearing up for Sindh."
In the south, a mass exodus is turning into a "huge humanitarian crisis", putting an extra burden on local economies and infrastructure, said Sindh government spokesman Jameel Soomro.
"We have a plan to shift flood victims to tent cities... More than 100,000 people have arrived in Sukkur from different flood-hit areas, which is more than five percent of the city's population," he said.
In Punjab, one of the worst affected areas was the town of Muzaffargarh, where administrator Farasat Iqbal said up to 400,000 people had been evacuated and rising waters posed a risk of flooding the town in the next 24 to 36 hours.
Doctor Shahid Iqbal at a technical college of the outskirts of Nowshehra, where more than 3,000 people were seeking shelter, said survivors were facing diarrhoea and skin infections including scabies.
Children were suffering in particular as a result of wading through or drinking water contaminated by ruptured sewerage systems, he told AFP.
Three-month-old baby Aisha lay on the floor, screeching in the intense heat, laced with the stench of raw sewage and buzzing with mosquitoes.
"She cries the whole night. I don't know what illness she has, but the doctors told me she will be alright," said her mother, Shakila.
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