From NBC shills
ISLAMABAD — The World Bank will release $900 million to help fund relief efforts for Pakistan's flood disaster as international agencies warned millions of people were at risk from disease.
The United Nations has warned that up to 3.5 million children could be in danger of contracting deadly diseases carried through contaminated water and insects in a crisis that has disrupted the lives of at least a tenth of Pakistan's 170 million people.
Up to 1,600 people have been killed and two million made homeless in Pakistan's worst floods in decades.
Hundreds of villages across Pakistan, one of the poorest countries in Asia, have been marooned, highways have been cut in half and thousands of homeless people have been forced to set up tarpaulin tents along the side of roads.
The World Bank funds will come through the reprogramming of planned projects and reallocation of undisbursed funds, but it did not say how it would be utilized to aid flood victims.
"We are reprioritizing to make the funds immediately available," said Mariam Altaf, a spokesman for the World Bank.
Public anger has grown in two weeks of floods, highlighting potential political troubles for an unpopular government as aid failed to keep pace with the rising river waters.
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