Flood affected people reluctant to move

Durrani said that thousands of people are still marooned in different flood-devastated districts of Balochistan.

QUETTA: Recently appointed focal person for flood relief affairs Balochistan, Raheela Durrani, has said that thousands of people are still marooned in different flood-devastated districts of Balochistan. She told journalists that a majority of victims are reluctant to go to safer places.

Durrani made this claim during a press conference at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat after participating in a high level meeting to review the flood situation. Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani chaired the meeting.

She informed the media that fresh floods lashed the Kachhi and Jhal Magsi areas where relief operations had been resumed early in the morning.

She also said marooned people are more worried about their valuables and animals and have therefore refused to be evacuated to relief camps or safer places. “The rescue workers dropped food and water but most fell into floodwater. Now we, the government, are planning to install at least ten water filtration plants to overcome the issue of clean drinking water.”

“Balochistan is hosting more than one million flood affected people and it is too difficult to provide each and every person with relief goods and food but the provincial government is making all out efforts in this regard,” she maintained.

She said that a lack of coordination existed between the media and the government and so she had been deputed as the focal person to deal with the media and provide details regarding the relief operations being carried out by government.

Durrani claimed that 75,267 houses had been washed away or completely damaged and more than 0.1 million families were rendered homeless. At least 48 people lost their lives and 50 were reported to be missing.

Replying to a query, she said the Balochistan government had demanded an inquiry into the diverting of floodwaters to Balochistan from Sindh.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2010.