— Statistics show 33.4mn affected in worst floods in recent memory
— Up to 200,000 feared trapped in remote regions
QUETTA/PESHAWAR/MULTAN: Another 36 people were claimed dead in different rain and flood-related mishaps across the country over the past 24 hours, pushing the overall tally to 1,162, according to the official statistics released late on Tuesday.
Of the latest fatalities, 19 were reported from Punjab, whose southern districts have been battered by massive floods caused by torrential rains over the past two weeks.
Nine people, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The remaining deaths were reported from Sindh and Balochistan, the authority said.
A total of 3,554 people have been injured in all four provinces, the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region and Azad Jammu and Kashmir since mid-June.
Some 33.4 million people in 72 districts across the country have been affected by the ongoing rainfall and floods, the NDMA said.
Constant rains and raging floods have already destroyed a large chunk of infrastructure and agricultural lands across the country, including tens of thousands of houses, roads, and bridges, and washed away nearly a million animals.
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS STRANDED
Up to 200,000 people are stranded in remote valleys after the unrelenting floods — with helicopters the only way of reaching them.
Unprecedented rain in the Swat Valley turned rivers into raging torrents that washed away roads and bridges, cutting off tourists and residents from nearby towns, even as the water receded.
Extreme floods continue this morning in Malakand division of #Swat, #Pakistan pic.twitter.com/JBPDZDcqmT
— The Intel Consortium (@INTELPSF) August 26, 2022
Army and government helicopter missions have rescued hundreds of panicked tourists and locals — some urgently needing medical help.
“It feels like I have got a second life,” said tourist Yasmin Akram, a diabetic who was airlifted to Saidu Sharif’s airfield from the Kalam valley with her 12-year-old daughter and husband.
The traffic police officer watched in despair as the hotel they fled in the middle of the night was swallowed by the Swat river, taking with it a young boy.
“I witnessed this all with my own eyes,” she said. “Since then I haven’t slept.”
Her husband, dazed from exhaustion, said he ran out of medication for his kidney condition after Kalam was cut off.
“When I arrived here it was like being given a new life,” said Muhammad Akram, an official with the Punjab government.
Their two adult sons were left behind, with priority given to the sick, women and children.
The stunning Swat Valley, known locally as the “Pakistani Switzerland”, is a popular tourist spot because of its majestic mountains, lakes and rivers.
The deeply conservative area came to notoriety in the mid-2000s, when it saw the rise of a powerful local chapter of the Pakistani Taliban.
In 2012, following a military operation to displace the Taliban, then-schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai — now a Nobel peace laureate — was shot and left for dead by militants in Swat’s main town, Mingora.
‘CHALLENGES ARE IMMENSE’
Junaid Khan, the deputy commissioner of Swat, told AFP that stricken tourists have made up the majority of evacuations.
Government officials and doctors have been airlifted into the valleys to identify those most in need of rescue.
Locals are willing to stay behind if food and medical supplies are guaranteed, said Khan.
Thousands of food aid packages have already been delivered –- some dropped from the back of a helicopter when crowds of people reaching for the aircraft made it impossible to land.
“We’ve reached areas that no other organisations and aid groups have been able to,” Khan said at Saidu Sharif’s airfield, where some of the rescue missions are being coordinated.
Locals are hurrying to create makeshift landing pads for the helicopters –- with the first established on grounds surrounding a mosque in Mankyel.
It could be days before roads leading to the mountains and valleys are repaired.
“The challenges are immense but the hope is very high in this region which has seen the worst of terrorism, militancy, earthquakes and floods,” said Khan.
A helicopter supplied by the provincial government’s chief minister –- not built for rescue missions — has helped to pull more than 350 people from villages, carrying up to double the recommended number of passengers.
Army helicopters have collected hundreds more.
— With input from AFP
