Raging flash floods kill mother and son in K-P
Heavy flooding caused by the ongoing monsoon rains continued to wreak havoc across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Punjab, as three hours of heavy downpours in Hangu district in K-P, along with Kurram and Orakzai agencies claimed the lives of a mother and her son on Saturday.
The incident occurred when the roof of their house collapsed in Zargeri area of Hangu district.
Both of them were rushed to the District Headquarters hospital where doctors pronounced them dead on arrival.
In Tangi tehsil of Charsadda district, police officials warned people in several villages through loudspeakers to abandon their homes due to the imminent flooding in the area and to move to safer places.
Chenab, Ravi rivers burst their banks
The ongoing floods created more misery in Punjab, where at least 13 villages in Bajwat-Sialkot were inundated on Saturday, destroying crops on hundreds of acres of land.
Locals were forced to move to safer places along with their cattle and other necessities, as the Chenab and Ravi rivers unleashed their fury near their banks.
The Sialkot Irrigation Department officials claimed that the water level in River Chenab had risen to 146,000 cusecs due to the recent flooding, but they said that the water level was soaring again after a four-day lull due to the fresh spell of heavy rains in the Sialkot area.
However, Sialkot’s District Coordination Officer (DCO) Zahid Saleem Gondal said that the situation was under control, as relief activities were in full swing in the flood-hit areas. He said that special monitoring teams were keeping a vigilant eye round the clock on the situation, as the concerned departments had already been put on red alert to meet any emergency.
District administration officials had their hands full with repairing the over-night breach in the embankment of the flooded Palkhu Nullah, near village Chitti Sheikhan-Kotli Loharaan, in Sialkot tehsil. As a result, as many as six villages, including Chitti Sheikhan, Kapoorwali and Khansaar Pur were inundated and crops over hundreds of acres of land were damaged.
Village in Hafizabad district flooded
Meanwhile, residents of Birj Bhaiyyan village in Hafizabad district in Punjab are yet to receive any help from authorities, as flood water from the overflowing River Chenab inundated most of the village.
Residents of more than 30 houses have been forced to make do without food and clean drinking water, and are sleeping outdoors as their houses have been washed away by the swelling river waters. The villagers said that each family has suffered losses worth hundreds of thousands of rupees, but the government has still not provided them with any relief.
They added that the local member MPA and some officials of the district administration visited them, but no practical steps have been taken to help them. They claimed that Rs75 million was allocated to protect their village from erosion and flood waters, but the amount was yet to be spent on such measures. The villagers lamented that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had not taken any notice of their plight, despite being known to visit people affected by tragedies.
The villagers added that the tents provided to them by the district administration were of poor quality, while the power supply to their village remained suspended for the second consecutive day, adding to their woes. They demanded authorities to shift them to a safe place and provide them with food and clean water.
(WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN HAFIZABAD AND AGENCIES)
Published in The Express Tribune, August 26th, 2012.
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