Flooding spreads to Pakistan's heartland
Source: Agencies |
August 4, 2010, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FLOODWATERS that devastated Pakistan's mountainous northwest have surged into the heartland, submerging dozens of villages along bloated rivers whose torrents have killed at least 1,500 people and put 100,000 at risk of disease. Fresh rains in the hardest-hit northwest threatened to overwhelm a major dam and unleash a new deluge.
Relief work for some 3.2 million people has been hit by swamped roads, washed-out bridges and downed communication lines.
As floodwaters swept southward into Punjab Province yesterday, about 3,000 people were marooned in the Kot Addu area after the water breached a protection bank, forcing the army to stage an evacuation using boats and helicopters, said Major Farooq Feroz, a military spokesman.
The sudden gusher surprised Fateh Mohammad and his family. "We just ran away with our children, leaving behind everything. All our possessions are drowned in the water," he said while taking refuge on higher ground.
Water levels were so high in large tracts of Kot Addu and the nearby area of Layyah in the south, that only treetops and uppermost floors of some buildings were visible, footage shot by a cameraman on a helicopter showed. People sought refuge on rooftops and tried to bring their livestock up as far as possible.
Punjab is Pakistan's most populous province and home to many of its largest farms. Feroz said many villages in the province's Layyah, Taunsa Sharif, Rajan Pur, Dera Ghazi Khan and other areas had been inundated by water.
In the northwest, new downpours yesterday added to the misery of the worst flooding in generations. Of the 3.2 million people affected by flooding, 2.5 million live in the northwest, UNICEF spokesman Marco Jimenez told reporters in Geneva.
Rising water levels at Warsak Dam, the country's third biggest, prompted disaster officials to ask residents in the northern outskirts of Peshawar City to leave their homes. "If needed, forced evacuation will be started," an official of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province said.
Relief work for some 3.2 million people has been hit by swamped roads, washed-out bridges and downed communication lines.
As floodwaters swept southward into Punjab Province yesterday, about 3,000 people were marooned in the Kot Addu area after the water breached a protection bank, forcing the army to stage an evacuation using boats and helicopters, said Major Farooq Feroz, a military spokesman.
The sudden gusher surprised Fateh Mohammad and his family. "We just ran away with our children, leaving behind everything. All our possessions are drowned in the water," he said while taking refuge on higher ground.
Water levels were so high in large tracts of Kot Addu and the nearby area of Layyah in the south, that only treetops and uppermost floors of some buildings were visible, footage shot by a cameraman on a helicopter showed. People sought refuge on rooftops and tried to bring their livestock up as far as possible.
Punjab is Pakistan's most populous province and home to many of its largest farms. Feroz said many villages in the province's Layyah, Taunsa Sharif, Rajan Pur, Dera Ghazi Khan and other areas had been inundated by water.
In the northwest, new downpours yesterday added to the misery of the worst flooding in generations. Of the 3.2 million people affected by flooding, 2.5 million live in the northwest, UNICEF spokesman Marco Jimenez told reporters in Geneva.
Rising water levels at Warsak Dam, the country's third biggest, prompted disaster officials to ask residents in the northern outskirts of Peshawar City to leave their homes. "If needed, forced evacuation will be started," an official of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province said.
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