U.S. Delivers More Than 1 Million Pounds in Pakistan Flood Relief

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., Aug. 20, 2010 — U.S. mil­i­tary air­craft sup­port­ing Pakistan’s flood relief efforts achieved a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone today, exceed­ing 1 mil­lion pounds of relief sup­plies deliv­ered since Aug. 5, when U.S. mil­i­tary relief flight oper­a­tions in Pak­istan began.

To date, U.S. mil­i­tary heli­copters and C‑130 air­craft have trans­port­ed 1,164,470 pounds of relief sup­plies in part­ner­ship with the Pak­istani mil­i­tary through­out flood-affect­ed areas, deliv­er­ing much-need­ed aid and pro­vid­ing trans­port to peo­ple who urgent­ly need emer­gency assistance. 

“We’re hon­ored to part­ner togeth­er, side by side with the Pak­istan mil­i­tary and gov­ern­ment, help­ing Pak­ista­nis in their time of need,” said Navy Vice Adm. Michael A. LeFever, U.S. defense rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Pak­istan. “The courage and dis­ci­pline dis­played by the Pak­istani mil­i­tary dur­ing this cri­sis has been tru­ly impressive.” 

With­in hours of receiv­ing the Pak­istani government’s urgent request, U.S. mil­i­tary heli­copters began con­duct­ing relief flights Aug. 5 and have since trans­port­ed 849,170 pounds of aid and res­cued 5,372 peo­ple. Mean­while, U.S. mil­i­tary C‑130 car­go air­craft based in Afghanistan began pro­vid­ing air­lift sup­port to Pak­istan on Aug. 16 and have since deliv­ered 315,300 pounds of relief sup­plies to mul­ti­ple loca­tions through­out the country. 

In addi­tion to air­lift sup­port, with­in 36 hours of the ini­tial flood­ing on July 29, the U.S. mil­i­tary began deliv­er­ing thou­sands of pack­aged meals that con­form with Islam­ic law to Pak­istan from U.S. stocks in Afghanistan and else­where in the region. In all, 436,944 meals were pro­vid­ed to civil­ian and mil­i­tary offi­cials in Pak­istan for dis­tri­b­u­tion to Pak­ista­nis in need. 

“The abil­i­ty of the U.S. gov­ern­ment to respond so quick­ly to this dis­as­ter at the request of the gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan is a tes­ta­ment to the unique capa­bil­i­ties of the U.S. mil­i­tary and the U.S. com­mit­ment to help­ing the Pak­istani peo­ple,” LeFever said. “Pak­ista­nis are our friends and part­ners, and we will con­tin­ue to sup­port them dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time.” 

Flood relief sup­port to Pak­istan from the Unit­ed States is being pro­vid­ed through a whole-of‑U.S. gov­ern­ment, inter­a­gency response. Relief efforts are being coor­di­nat­ed through the U.S. Embassy in Islam­abad, in full con­sul­ta­tion with the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Pakistan’s Nation­al Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Author­i­ty and oth­er agencies. 

The lat­est infor­ma­tion on U.S. gov­ern­ment sup­port to Pakistan’s flood relief is avail­able on the U.S. Embassy Islam­abad website. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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