Pakistan disaster not over yet
13.08.2010
Photo: Reuters/
Akhtar Soomro courtesy www.alertnet.org
The severe flooding in Pakistan is about to reach Hyderabad, where Columbans live and work with local parishes and ministries. Fr. Robert McCulloch said,
"It is about
to become a disaster in
Hyderabad where much of
my ministry is."
Fr. McCulloch and eight other Columban priests and lay missionaries in the area are helping people brace for the devastation and will be working to help them recover.
“Everything on the ground floor of St. Elizabeth Hospital, of which I am chairman, has gone to the first floor. We will lose all our x-ray department and its equipment and the operating theatres will be horribly affected. Some equipment cannot be removed. Our recently installed 135 KVA (Kilo Volt Ampere) generator will be ruined. And the building itself! I cannot begin to think properly about it all” said Fr McCulloch.
“The Catholic Centre of Academic Excellence in Hyderabad that is run for 100 Catholic young men will be flooded completely. Churches, Catholic schools and clinics upcountry have been damaged already and more will be badly damaged in Hyderabad”.
He says that homes of thousands of ordinary struggling families have been destroyed in the north of Pakistan. This is what is now facing the people of Hyderabad.
Fr. McCulloch says that funds will be needed to reconstruct after the floods recede and to help people put their lives back together:” People will have immediate medical needs, especially impoverished women who have gone through childbirth in terrible flood circumstances. They live in grinding poverty which is made worse by this awful disaster.”
“May we all continue to serve the love of Christ.”
Fr Robert McCulloch
