Large parts of flooded coastal area still inaccessible

Flash floods have badly affected some 17,000 people in nearly 40 villages scattered throughout the southern coastal district of Gawadar in Pakistan's southwest Baluchistan province after more than one week of heavy rains. "The accurate number of deaths or injured is not known yet, as hundreds of people in the inundated areas are missing and many villages are still inaccessible," Ghulam Ali, a district officer, told IRIN on Friday from the southern coastal city of Gawadar. "People of the flooded areas are sitting at higher places on mountains under the open sky and there are no proper shelter arrangements yet." Heavy rains one day earlier caused a 485-foot-long dam, Shadi Khore, along the coastal line to burst, sweeping hundreds of villagers into the Arabian Sea. Around 1,200 were rescued by army rescue teams with helicopters and boats, the Associated Press reported, quoting Mudasser Butt, an army spokesman, from the provincial capital of Quetta. According to initial reports, the worst hit areas were the southern districts of Gawadar, Awaran, Lasbela and Khuzdar. A number of bridges, roads, houses and cattle have reportedly been washed away, with around 40,000 acres of wheat and onion crops badly damaged. Electricity and telephone service to the area has also been severely damaged. Rescue teams from Pakistan’s armed forces and civil administration, along with 11 helicopters, boats and flood relief equipment, have been mobilised on Friday to the flood-affected coastal area of Pasni in Gawadar district. In a statement by the Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate (ISPR), army and navy rescue teams have established a tent village to shelter those affected in the Mand area of Gawadar district, while field medical teams have also been dispatched to the flood-affected areas to provide immediate medical care and treatment. Three rescue teams of Pakistan’s leading charity, Edhi Foundation arrived on Thursday night to the flood-hit area of Pasni along with boats. “Nearly 33 dead bodies have been recovered from a stream in Turbat. Another 300 have been rescued from the flooded area of the Shadi Khore dam,” Anwar Kazmi, a spokesman for the foundation, told IRIN from the southern port city of Karachi. Although temporary shelter had been arranged at some schools and other state-owned buildings, Kazmi added that many people were still living outdoors. "We plan to fly over the flooded area tomorrow and drop foodstuff as today weather conditions didn’t permit any aerial operations,” he said. The country’s meteorological department reported that although the spell of heavy rains had finished, light rains were expected to continue over the rest of the month in regular intervals. Meanwhile, heavy snowfall in the northern parts of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has essentially cut the region off from the rest of the country, with many people facing a shortage of food and fodder for their cattle. "Nearly 20 households have been hit by an avalanche in the district of Swat and a rescue operation is now underway," Ghulam Farooq Khan, head of the provincial relief cell told IRIN from the provincial capital, Peshawar, conceding an accurate assessment of the damage would not be known until the weather improved.