File:Providing clean water to millions of people.jpg

It is one year since Pakistan was hit by one of the largest natural disasters the world has ever seen. The flooding caused by 10 years worth of rain falling in just two weeks resulted in extreme flooding across much of the country.

A staggering 14 million people were forced to flee their homes, thousands of schools were destroyed, and agriculture was wiped out across vast areas.

The UK responded swiftly and significantly. UK aid helped millions of people, initially by providing emergency shelter, food, healthcare, clean drinking water and sanitation. Later it helped people to rebuild their lives and become self-sufficient again by constructing flood resistant brick homes, replacing bridges and schools, and providing seeds, livestock, jobs and tools. All this will help reduce long term dependency on aid.

Emergency aid from the UK has included providing:

- Clean water to around 2.4 million people

- Toilets and sanitation to some 1.2 million people

- Heath and hygiene education to around 2.5 million people on how to avoid potentially fatal diseases

- Shelter to more than one million people, including 13,400 flood resistant brick houses, each big enough to house a family of up to eight people

- Wheat and vegetable seeds, fertiliser, animal feed and veterinary services to approx 895,000 people

- 200,000 children with education by repairing schools, as well as accelerating a project to build forty new schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa benefitting another 9,000 boys and girls

To find out more about how the UK is helping in Pakistan, please visit: <a href="http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Features/2011/Pakistan-floods---one-year-on/" rel="nofollow">www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Features/2011/Pakistan-floods-...</a>

Image credit: Vicki Francis/Department for International Development

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