- Incidents related to rain claim 10 lives while injuring dozens others across the country
More than 10 people including women and children died while dozen others were injured in separate incident of roof collapses and other mishaps related to rains in different areas of the country on Sunday, as the army, navy began speeding up relief work across the country.
Heavy rains continued to lash various areas of the country flooding the rivers, nullahs, inundating the low lying areas, resulting in closures of roads, disconnecting far flung areas with main town due to landslides, destroying crops and agricultural lands rendering millions of rupee losses to general public and government.
Rescue sources said that roof of a dilapidated mud-stone made house located near Old Sabzi Mandi in Pakpattan suddenly came down resulting in death of three including mother, two sons while father and daughter were left critically injured.
In Nand Singh area of Mian Channu, roof of a house collapsed due to heavy rain resulting in death of father and a daughter while two others were injured in the incident.
A child died and three others were wounded in collapse incident in Rukanabad area of Dera Ghazi Khan.
Two women died as heavy rains resulted in roof collapse in Umerabad area of Karak Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP). Three people were critically injured in roof collapse incident in Siri Lougar area of Karak.
About two dozen people including women and children were injured in incidents of roof collapses and road mishaps caused due to heavy downpour in Sialkot, Bhakkar, Mianwali, Sargodha, Shikarpur, Abbottabad, Haripur, Skardu and other cities across the country.
The injured of all incidents were shifted to different hospitals of respective areas where condition of several wounded people was stated to be serious and it was feared that death toll could rise further.
Heavy rain flooded the rivers and nullah inundating the low lying areas in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Water entered in houses wetting the households creating problems for the residents.
Land route between Dera Ghazi Khan and Balochistan was blocked due to landslides near Fort Minro.
ARMY, NAVY COME INTO ACTION:
Sindh fared no better as Pakistan Navy Rescue were deployed at Badin, Khairpur, Ghotki, Sukkur, Pano Aqil, while Larkana, Rani pur and Gambat are continuously involved in flood relief operations.
The teams have evacuated 655 residents from different villages of Khairpur, 135 from Ghotki, 355 from Pano Aqil and 815 from Rani pur and Gambat in the last 24 hours. Bodies of two men drowned in Dadu Canal, Larkana have also been recovered by PN teams.
Another consignment of six tonnes of relief goods by Pakistan Navy have also been dispatched to Khairpur from Karachi and a tent city is also being established at Khairpur by Pakistan Navy for the flood affectees.
In Punjab, the army evacuated 67,000 people, distribute food packages and treat 6250 people in Layyah, Sadiqabad and Rahimyar Khan.
A press release by the ISPR Sunday said that food packages were distributed among the affected people and 3250 patients were treated in army medical camp so far.
More than 300 patients have been treated in Army Medical camp at Chachran Sharif and food packages have been distributed among flood effected people.
The army was also active in Chitral, and as many as 45 assessment teams are in the field to ascertain the volume of loss of human life, live stock and damage to private and government property suffered during the ongoing rains and flash floods in different parts of Chitral district. Efforts are underway for provision of instant relief to the flood affectees.
Sources said the government machinery is mobilised and working shoulder to shoulder under the supervision of district administration and Pak Army to provide relief to the affected people. All the line departments are also actively involved in relief activities. Life in sub-division Mustuj, Lot Koh and Kalash valley has been completely paralysed, as major roads leading to the areas have remained inaccessible owing to flooding since two weeks now.
Flooding in Drosh completely inundated the main road linking the area to other parts of the country. At least 32 people, including women and children, have died since torrential rains began in Chitral almost two weeks ago.
According to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, the most affected areas in Chitral is union council Mulkhow and sub-division Mustuj, where 23 people have been killed. At least 10 people have died in Saht, eight in Uthol, two people each in Broze, Gohkir, and Lone, and one person each in Reshun, Ayun, Hingel, Green Lasht, and Warinj.
PDMA said floods have also killed more than 3,600 cattle in the affected district till now. The major difficulty in providing relief to the affected people is that Chitral is mountainous vast areas that mostly remain inaccessible. The Pak Army, having trained manpower and heavy machinery has made the task of civil administration easy by restoring the broken bridges, removing debris from the roads, rescuing the affectees from vulnerable sites delivering food items to flood affectees in inaccessible areas etc.
DCO CLAIMS WATER LEVELS ARE FALLING
While the entire country is battered by floods, the official machinery has another version altogether.
District Coordination Officer (DCO) Shaukat Ali said water level was decreasing in the river Indus and there was medium level flood at Tounsa Barrage.
Distributing ration bags among flood-hit people during his visit to a relief camp at Ahsanpura Kot Addu on Sunday, the DCO said every possible facility was being provided to flood victims and 29,255 people had been shifted to safer places till now.
He said 860 people were living in three relief camps of Kot Addu while 14 were living in a camp at Alipur. He said people living in relief camps were being provided three time food beside other facilities. He said 10,000 ration bags had been distributed among people who were willingly living in their homes while 1,500 tents, 1,500 mosquito nets and 10,000 bottles of mineral waters had been distributed.
The DCO said a survey was being conducted to estimate losses while according to an initial survey three hamlets of Muzaffargarh tehsil, 19 Kot Addu tehsil, four of Jatoi tehsil and 37 of Alipur tehsil were affected. A total of 47,281 acres while standing crops on 29,000 acres had been affected by flood.
