Roskilde Aid For Pakistan

Roskilde Festival has donated 1 million Danish kroner ($172,000) to help flood victims in southern Pakistan.

Every year since the early ’70s the Danish festival has given its profits to humanitarian projects. The latest donation from the 2010 gathering, which sold out its 75,000-capacity event two weeks in advance and made an estimated 10 million kroner ($1.72 million), will reach the disaster area via the Danish Red Cross.

Even though the rain in Pakistan has now stopped, and in some places the water has retreated, the festival says the disaster is far from over. The challenge is still getting clean drinking water, food and medicine to the victims.

More than 20 million people have been affected by the flooding in Pakistan, which has ruined 3.6 million hectares (8.9 million acres) of farmland. That’s more than the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake and the Haiti earthquake combined.

The Roskilde Festival Charity Society, which distributes the money the festival raises, has also donated 100,000 kroner ($17,230) to humanitarian work in Haiti.

The money will go via aid organisation CARE, which specialises in helping the poorest to adapt to climate changes and has more than 60 years of experience in fighting and preventing global poverty.