QUETTA: Thousands of people were marooned in up to 10-foot-deep waters in Gandakha town on Saturday as rescue work could not be launched even though 24 hours had passed since the inundation of the tehsil.
The town cut off from the rest of Jaffarabad district was facing a shortage of food, drinking water and medicines.
About 70 per cent of the town’s people had left for safe places themselves, while others were awaiting government help and had taken refuge on high grounds in the west of the town and on roof tops of buildings.
Floodwaters submerged over two dozen more villages in the area. Hospitals, a rural health centre, water supply schemes and government offices were inundated.
In Chowki Jamali, about 5,000 people, mostly women and children, camping near the Noorpur regulator, were facing food shortage. “Please provide us food as we have nothing to eat. Our children have no milk,” Attaullah Jamali said.
Two helicopters dropped food packets in areas of Gandakha after failing to find a place to land.
Local people complained that most of the packets dropped had landed in floodwaters and milk packs had burst upon falling.
Two women were critically injured when a wall of a house collapsed during an attempt by a helicopter to land.
A child died of gastroenteritis.
“The situation in Dera Allahyar, Rojhan Jamali, Kashmirabad and Sohbatpur is worsening because more flood torrents are reaching the areas which have been inundated for the past week. The level of floodwaters is rising and damaging more houses and other buildings,” sources said.
Usta Mohammad was still surrounded by high floodwaters and a large numbers of adjacent villages were submerged.
The sources said the floodwaters were at a considerable distance from Jhal Magsi but threatening various areas in the district.
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