Emails from Pakistan

For some months, I have had occasional emails from Ahsan Lail in Pakistan, who first contacted me through the lailnet.com website about our common last name.

The conversation started in July before the flooding in Pakistan began and well before the flood waters reached the southern province of Sindh, where he lives.

So far, over 1,800 people have died and millions are homeless in what is being called the "2010 Pakistan Floods."
The United Nations estimates that 21 million have been injured or left homeless or have lost crops and farm land to the floods. The scale of the devastation is enormous, surpassing, according to Wikipedia, the combined number in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Ahsan Lail is a high court advocate, practicing law in a village in the Badin District named Haji Ghulam Hussain Lail, and at Karachi, the province capital of Sindh. (The map to the above right shows Pakistan with the Sindh Province in orange and the Badin District in red.)

He is 26. Four of his brothers are doctors and two are still "under study."

He said that Lail "here in Sindh, Pakistan, that is a cast of identification. I think 50 villages of Lail community. every village is consist of above 50 houses."

He said most of the Lails live in 20 villages in the Badin District of the Sindh Province and there are others in several other districts.

I have heard from him a few times since the floods along the Indus River reached Sindh Province.

On Aug. 17, he wrote that there was a huge loss to Sindh due to the floods. Millions of people are homeless and many have died due to hunger, "There is no remedy available for men. Govt not take satisfy action."

This morning, a month later, he wrote that millions of people in Sindh continue to be homeless and are  living in tents.

The flooding has not yet ended,particularly in the Sindh area. Some health experts also predict a second wave of deaths due to cholera or other diseases. To help the people of Pakistan, you can donate here.