Pakistan's 2.7m people cut off from rest of country

PESHAWAR: Authorities and aid organisations said Tuesday that around 2.7 million population has cut off from the rest of the country after a main bridge washed away by flood in Chakdara. Talking to BBC, Adnan Khan, a spokesman for Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said that three districts - Upper Dir, Lower Dir and Chitral - have been cut off from rest of the country for the last five days after Chakdara bridge on Swat River was washed away. The Malakand region, which includes Swat, is among the worst-affected areas, with roads and bridges washed away. Adnan said most of bridges have been destroyed in Swat valley and "and road links of those areas have been disconnected with Mingora city". "Population of the Upper Dir, Lower Dir and Chitral is around 2.7 million and efforts are underway to provide food and relief goods to people in these districts though helicopters," he said. "The entire infrastructure we built in the last 50 years has been destroyed," he said. A week into the crisis and as more monsoon rains lashed the country, anger was growing to boiling point among impoverished survivors complaining that they have been abandoned by the government after their livelihoods were swept away. The government issued new flood warnings Tuesday. Authorities issued an alert to people living around Warsak Dam, one of the country's biggest dams and lying outside Peshawar, as water levels rose. Meteorological service forecast widespread rains in the southern province of Sindh, Punjab in the centre, Azad Kashmir andBaluchistan during the next three days. Flash flooding was expected in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Baluchistan, it warned, with heavy thunderstorms in Islamabad. The government in Khyber Pakhtunkwa has said up to 1,500 people have died, although there are fears the toll could rise further. Nadeem Ahmad estimated that roughly three million people were affected - 1.5 million in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the same number in central province Punjab. Of around 3.2 million people affected, 1.4 million were children, said Marco Jimenez Rodriguez, a spokesman for UNICEF. "People immediately need food, water, shelter, health facilities, medicines and sanitation," UN World Food Programme spokesman Amjad Jamal told AFP. Bedraggled victims walked behind donkey carts stacked with luggage or crammed into cars, trying to reach safer ground as others sheltered in mosques from downpours that threaten to deepen the misery of hundreds of thousands. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani was to chair an emergency cabinet meeting today to estimate the damages, expected to run into billions of rupees and expedite the relief work.