The floods of November 19th 2009 in Ireland were the most devastating recorded in over two hundred and fifty years. Prior to this the most destructive floods that impacted on Ireland was the tsunami that hit the Irish coast in the aftermath of the 1755 Great Lisbon Earthquake.
Ireland had to wait 250 yrs for a second major natural disaster. In between we suffered the Great Famine of 1845-52. The people who provided the most effective help to the Irish during this catastrophe were members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, from America who provided food, mostly American flour, rice, biscuits and Indian meal. Their efforts were widely supported in America not least from the Choctaws native America tribes.
This is extraordinary given that it was an Irish America President, President Andrew Jackson (whose parents emigrated from Antrim in northern Ireland) who in 1831 seized the fertile who lands of the Choctaws native American Indian tribes in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana forcing them to relocate to Indian reservations in a journey that became know as the “Trail of Tears”.
Of about 20,000 Choctaws who started the journey, more than half perished from exposure, malnutrition, and disease. Despite this in 1847, the Indians of the Choctaw nation moved by news of starvation in Ireland and in recognition of the similarities between their own experiences and those of the Irish with loss of property, forced migration and exile, mass starvation, and cultural suppression, the Choctaw raised the equivalent of €120,000 in today’s currency for a famine relief fund for Ireland.
This extraordinary gift from a people who were themselves impoverished has never been forgotten.
Today it is the people Pakistan that are suffering a humanitarian crisis of unimaginable scale. According to the UN the number of people suffering is double the combined total of the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haite earthquake. The total number of people affected in the three other disasters is about 11 million. The total number affected by the recent floods in Pakistan is 20 million.
The floods devastated the already flimsy public health system destroying hundreds of clinics. 30,000 women health workers, the backbone of the community health system were made homeless alone. The floods inundated an area more than twice the size of Ireland, crippling Pakistan’s agriculture and its economy. The waters swept away 2.4m hectares (6m acres) of crops – fruit, wheat, cotton, rice – while 1.2 million large animals, such as cattle, below, and 6 million poultry have perished. In the cities, food prices have soared, raising already high inflation. And the floods wiped out the equivalent of 2m bales of cotton, a costly blow to the £12bn textile industry, which employs 10 million.
Two years ago I met Ayesha Siddiqi, a young highly educated Pakistan graduate at a climate change conference. We discussed emergency planning and relief in light of the implications of climate change and how extreme weather events may affect humanity in the years ahead. Little did I know that within two years both our countries would be hit by natural disasters as a result of extreme weather. Our towns and cities have largely been rebuilt, nobody perished in the floods, we have survived one catastrophe to witness another economic crisis. But this pails into insignificance to what the people of Pakistan are currently experiencing. The earthquake that hit northern Pakistan in 2005 killed 85,000 people, a large percentage children and made more than 3million homeless with more than 1000 hospitals destroyed. Now less than five years later they are suffering the worst humanitarian crisis to befall a nation in modern times.
Ayesha is currently working with Karachi Relief a Pakistan Disaster Management Voluntary Organization supported by civic minded volunteers. She contacted me recently appealing for help. They have set up camps in some of the worst affected areas and are providing support in food sanitation, shelter, medical supplies and clean drinking water. The organisation is entirely run and managed by unpaid professionals like Ayesha, volunteering their time and resources in an attempt to make a difference.
Last year Bandon Film society screened a charity film to raise funds for the Bandon flood relief. Next Friday the 15th October we will be screening the acclaimed 1931 film Dracula in St Peters Church Bandon at 9pm with the renowned composer Dr Eric Sweeney. Eric is returning by popular demand to Bandon following his sell out performance last year at Phantom of the Opera where he will again be performing an original score and sound for the film on the church organ. All proceeds from the event are being donated to the Karachi Relief Trust in Pakistan. Tickets are €10. Please support.
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