Shahdadkot, Pakistan (CNN) — Shahdadkot’s half-million people frantically tried to flee their homes Saturday as a wall of water threatened to burst mud berms and drown the entire city in Pakistan’s Sindh province.

Three weeks into the worst natural disaster in Pakistan’s history, people were still desperate to escape as a second wave of monsoon floodwaters surged southward. More than 1,500 people have died and 20 million lives have been disrupted.

Already, huge parts of Shahdadkot look like a lake, with the roofs of some houses barely above water. Authorities advised the entire population to evacuate.

Residents climbed onto heaps of belongings piled high in the beds of rickety trucks, packed buses, auto-rickshaws and carts to get out of town before the water came. Many did not know where they were going — just that they had to reach drier ground.

But there weren’t enough vehicles for a mass evacuation.

Sunat Magsi and her 100-strong extended family lost their nine mud huts to the raging torrents. They sought shelter in an abandoned house, but even there the water was creeping higher. They only had one donkey and one cart left.

“We have so many children here,” Magsi said, weeping. “We don’t know how we’re going to get out. We need help.”

Pakistan is dotted with villages, towns and cities submerged like Shahdadkot. Floodwaters are expected to recede in the next few days as the last surges in the Indus River flow into the Arabian Sea.

But the suffering is sure to continue. Health officials fear that the human toll will get a lot worse as people are forced to wade through unsanitary water while clean drinking water is scarce.

More than 200 health facilities have been damaged or destroyed, according to the World Health Organization, greatly reducing the available health care for millions of survivors in filthy conditions. At least 4 million people are homeless.

Dr. Guido Sabatinelli of the World Health Organization said reports of diarrhea have increased 30 percent.

Map: Flood-affected areas of Pakistan

Video: Stubborn flood victims refuse to leave

“The depth of suffering is incalculable as risks escalate of diarrhea, acute respiratory infection, malaria and other communicable diseases,” Sabatinelli said. “It is crucial that all humanitarian health providers, local and national, coordinate their relief efforts closely to save lives, reduce suffering and deliver the most effective response.”

United Nations officials have appealed for $460 million over the next three months to help the roughly 20 million people in need of shelter, food and emergency care.

The U.N. has received about $263 million and an additional $54 million in pledges — or about 70 percent of its goal, said Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

WHO said waterborne, airborne and contagious diseases, including acute watery diarrhea, measles, malaria and acute respiratory infections, are threats due to overcrowding, lack of hygiene and breakage in waterlines.

Meanwhile, International Monetary Fund officials said they will meet with members of the Pakistani government in Washington next week to discuss the economic impact of the massive floods that have ravaged the country.

“The floods which have hit Pakistan in recent weeks and brought suffering to millions of people will also pose a massive economic challenge to the people and government of Pakistan,” said Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department.

Ahmed says the meeting will be an opportunity to evaluate the economic impact of the floods, assess what Pakistan’s government is doing to respond to it and “discuss ways in which the IMF can assist Pakistan at this difficult juncture.”

May 25, 2010

Collinsville, Ill., Local 309 member Bob Frisse is known for his using his electrical skills to help local families in need. But last February, he got an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put his training and expertise to work helping a nation halfway across the planet.

Last Christmas, fellow Local 309 member Steve Bendick asked Frisse to accompany him to the jungles of Bangladesh – a small nation in South Asia – to make some needed repairs at a Memorial Christian Hospital, a charitable hospital that provides urgent medical care to some of that country’s neediest families.

Bendick is a longtime friend of Dr. Steven Kelly, a surgeon who works at the hospital who was in immediate need of professional electricians.

Bangladesh’s national power grid is notoriously unreliable, with blackouts occurring sometimes up to 10 times a day or more. The hospital uses two generators for backup, but the frequent power failures burned out its automatic transfer switches.

“They had a guy manually switching the power to the generator whenever the grid went down,” Frisse said. “He had to stick his hand into the generator to do it, which isn’t too safe.”

Bendick – who had first traveled to Bangladesh to work on the hospital a decade ago – volunteered to help, but he didn’t want to make the trip alone.

Despite the last minute request, Frisse didn’t think twice about going. But he had less than a month to raise money, get his passport renewed and schedule immunization shots, before leaving on the 30-hour flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.

“It was a wild experience,” Frisse said. “I never thought I would be in a situation where I was rushing off to Bangladesh.”

They both did some last-minute fundraising through their churches and families to purchase tickets and tools they needed.

Bendick and Frisse say they are particularly grateful for all the support they got from the local and their employer, Guarantee Electric, which donated tools and new transfer switches.

Getting the equipment through customs was the biggest challenge. Bendick’s greatest fear was that custom officials would seize it to sell on the black market.

But they encountered no problems. After their arrival, they took a bumpy two-hour bus ride to reach to the seaside town of Malumghat, located near the Bay of Bengal. The hospital is located on a 44-acre tract of land nearby.

Electrical and safety standards are nearly nonexistent in Bangladesh and the generator was archaic by North American standards.

“You’re trying to make things work that back in the U.S. you would say is impossible, but over there you had no other option but to try to make it work,” Frisse said.

But with some help from local Bangladeshis, Bendick and Frisse got the transfer switches installed and running after 10 days.

Bendick says that it’s a tribute to the IBEW and the NJATC that his skills and experience could be put to good use helping empower a struggling Third World nation. “It’s good to know that, just like doctors and nurses, we have skills that can be used toward helping those in need,” he said.

Bangladesh, which is almost totally surrounded by neighboring India, is one of the most densely populated nations in the world. It is also one of the poorest, having suffered from war, natural disasters and overpopulation since its founding in 1971.

“I know at lot of people are struggling here at home, but after going over there and seeing what people in Bangladesh have to deal with every day, I feel blessed to have what I have,” Frisse said.