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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – More than four million Pakistanis have been made homeless by nearly three weeks of floods, the United Nations said on Thursday, making the critical task of securing greater amounts of aid more urgent.
The U.N. had earlier said that two million people had lost their homes in the worst floods in Pakistan's history.
Aid agencies have been pushing for more funding as they try to tackle major problems such as food supplies, lack of clean water and shelter and outbreaks of disease.
Economic costs of the floods are expected to run into the billions of dollars, stepping up pressure on Pakistan's government just after it had made progress in stabilizing the country through security offensives against Taliban insurgents.
Floods have ruined crops over an estimated area of more than 1.6 million acres, hammering the mainstay agriculture industry.
Flood victims are turning on each other as aid is handed out. The elderly sometimes take food from children as anger rises over the government's perceived sluggish response to the crisis. In the small town of Alipur in the agricultural heartland Punjab province, troops and police with batons charged flood victims trying to grab food unloaded from a helicopter.
Some waved empty pots and pans at a military helicopter, wondering, like millions of others, when food supplies will arrive.
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