ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- About 6 million people, most of them infants and children, are at risk of lethal diseases transmitted through dirty water in flooded Pakistan, officials said.
As the death toll from the flooding climbed to more than 1,400, the United Nations said it had received only a third of the $460 million it sought in an emergency appeal for donations, The New York Times reported.
"Clean water is an urgent need," Maurizio Giuliano, a U.N. spokesman, told the newspaper. "There was a first wave of deaths caused by the floods themselves. But if we don't act soon enough, there will be a second wave of deaths caused by a combination of lack of clean water, food shortages and water-borne and vector-borne diseases.
"The picture is a gruesome one".
Costs for essential aid are expected to continue increasing even after the rains stop. UPI
