Despite the lapse of more than three months, at least 22 villages of Dadu district are still submerged by floodwater and the people have been left at the mercy of Almighty Allah, States Advisor to Chief Minister for Relief Haleem Adil Sheikh.
He expressed these views while visiting the flood-affected small villages in Dadu on Tuesday. The advisor also distributed food items, relief goods and medicines among the flood-affectees besides directing communication with the affected people. He was also briefed about the serious problems being faced by the people there.
After the advisor’s visit, a detailed report has been worked out by the officials of the relief department that has been submitted to the chief minister so that these stranded people could get government assistance easier and at the earliest.
Speaking on the occasion, advisor Haleem Shaikh said that providing immediate relief and assistance to the flood-affected people was tantamount to hardly clearing tears of the people, however, this was not a permanent solution of the wounds the flood-hit people had been suffering from since last three consecutive years. There is a dire need to work out a comprehensive strategy to resolve the issues of the flood-hit people.
In Dadu alone, there are 22 villages which have no road access with the surrounding villages for the last couples of weeks and the villages are completely submerged with the floodwaters, the advisor said, adding the small villages of Khairpur Nathan Shah, Johi, Mado and Fareedabad had been disconnected while there was no official apparatus available to help the affected people.
The provincial as well as the district administration should work together to establish small connecting bridges in these villages identified in the report so that people could get connected with the rest of the districts while the relief activities could also be made possible in these affected villages.
Moreover, the people in these villages have been badly affected by the waterborne diseases like diarhhea, gastroenteritis etc and there was a major threat of outbreak of dengue and malaria virus, however, the mobile teams of health department were reluctant to visit these affected villages and provide health assistance to the poor people, Haleem added.
In this report, it is also mentioned clearly that the dewatering of floodwaters in these villages is much slow and thousands of acres agricultural lands have been still inundated resulting in loss of millions of rupees to the poor growers who have been crippled with the financial crisis since long with the continuation of the natural disasters in the province.
Furthermore, the schools in these affected villages have been closed and the education department has kept a mum over their reopening. The education department must come forward and make solid efforts to reopen these closed schools.