Floods kill 1,500, cause disease scare

Pakistan (AP):

Floodwaters that devastated Pakistan's mountainous northwest surged into the heartland yesterday, submerging dozens of villages along bloated rivers whose torrents have killed at least 1,500 people and put 100,000 at risk of disease.

Fresh rains in the hardest-hit northwest threatened to overwhelm a major dam and unleash a new deluge.

Relief work for some 3.2 million people has been delayed by swamped roads, washed-out bridges and downed communication lines, and survivors have complained about government inaction. Countries including the United States have pledged assistance to Pakistan, which is already struggling to control a rapacious Taliban militant movement.

Marooned

As floodwaters swept southward into Punjab province, about 3,000 people were marooned in the Kot Addu area after the water breached a protection bank, forcing the army to stage an evacuation using boats and helicopters, said, Major Farooq Feroz, a military spokesman.

The sudden gusher surprised Fateh Mohammad and his family.

"We just ran away with our children, leaving behind everything. All our possessions are drowned in the water. We have nothing," he said while taking refuge on higher ground.

Water levels were so high in large tracts of Kot Addu and the nearby area of Layyah in the south of the province, that only treetops and uppermost floors of some buildings were visible, footage shot by an Associated Press Television News cameraman on a helicopter showed. People sought refuge on rooftops and tried to bring their livestock up as far as possible.

"If needed, forced evacuation will be started," said Adnan Khan, a spokesman for the Disaster Management Authority of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.